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AN 

INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  HISTORY 

OF   CHRISTIANITY 


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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS  *   ATLANTA  ■   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  Limited 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA.  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


AN    INTRODUCTION 

TO   THE 

HISTORY    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

A.  D.   590-1314 


BY 


F.  J.  FOAKES  JACKSON 

FELLOW    OF    JESUS    COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE,  AND    PROFESSOR    OF 

CHRISTIAN  INSTITUTIONS  IN  UNION  THEOLOGICAL 

SEMINARY,    NEW    YORK 


1Rew  JfJork 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

192 1 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  19  21, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1021. 


o^'J  '    - 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    0!    AMERICA 


TO    THE    MEMORY    OF    MY    FRIEND 

BARRETT  WENDELL 


PREFACE 

The  object  of  this  work  is  to  give  such  an  introduction  to 
the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  as  to  make  its  readers  desire 
more  knowledge  of  this  important  epoch  in  the  development 
of  mankind.  I  have  attempted  to  present  the  main  features 
of  the  period,  treated  in  Chapters  which  are  rather  essays 
than  chronicles,  in  the  hope  of  stimulating  further  enquiry. 

Of  recent  years  comparatively  little  interest  has  been 
displayed  in  the  Middle  Ages;  and  the  subject  does  not 
appear  to  be  for  the  moment  popular  in  the  Universities 
either  of  Great  Britain  or  America.  This  may  be  due  to 
the  history  of  the  period  being  largely  ecclesiastical,  since 
nothing  can  explain  it  but  the  realisation  that  a  Christian 
ideal  dominated  society.  Possibly  for  this  reason  two  views 
of  the  Middle  Ages  have  become  fashionable,  both  equally 
erroneous.  On  the  one  hand  people  have  invested  them  with  a 
halo  of  sanctity,  and  have  even  maintained  that  in  the  thir- 
teenth century  humanity  reached  a  height  which  it  has  never 
since  attained.  That  this  century  is  worthy  of  this  encomium, 
despite  the  great  men  which  it  produced,  was  strenuously 
denied  by  those  who  lived  in  it,  and  considered  that  the  world 
had  reached  the  culminating  point  of  human  wickedness; 
nor  can  the  modern  student  wonder  at  this  pessimism.  On  the 
other  hand,  and  this  has  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  present 
lack  of  interest,  it  is  maintained  that  the  Middle  Ages  have 
little  to  teach  us.  A  period  of  superstition  and  ignorance  has 
no  interest  for  days  of  enlightenment;  and  men  who  lived  in 
a  world  of  aristocratic  privilege  have  nothing  in  common  with 
those  who  enjoy  the  blessings  of  democracy.  But  the  more 
we  know  of  the  conditions  of  those  times,  the  plainer  does  it 
become  that  our  problems  are  often  the  same  under  different 
names,  and  that  even  modern  views,  which  pass  for  being  ad- 
vanced,  have  their  counterpart  in  these  days.    After  all  we 


Vll 


vin  PREFACE 

are  the  inheritors  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  they  have  bequeathed 
to  us  many  of  our  hardest  problems.  The  story  of  the  Crusades 
is  enough  to  convince  the  most  sceptical  that  the  Near  East 
was  one  of  the  difficulties  which  our  ancestors  faced;  and  if 
they  failed,  can  it  be  said  that  we  have  succeeded? 

The  closeness  of  our  connection  with  this  remote  period  is 
proved  by  our  inability  to  write  impartially  concerning  it. 
We  cannot  as  purely  disinterested  persons  hold  the  balance 
between  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire,  or  discuss  the  Anglo- 
Norman  conquest  of  Ireland  as  detached  spectators  of  a  drama 
which  does  not  concern  us.  All  we  can  do  is  to  endeavour  to 
transport  ourselves  back  to  the  past,  and  try  to  realise  how 
men  acted  under  the  circumstances.  By  this  means  we  can 
learn  from  men's  successes  and  mistakes  how  to  encounter 
the  problems  of  the  present. 

I  had  hoped  to  cover  a  longer  period  in  this  volume;  but 
I  found  it  impossible  to  do  even  the  barest  justice  to  the  first 
part  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  culminated  in  the  close  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  The  destruction  of  the  most  powerful 
crusading  force,  that  of  the  Knights  Templar,  seemed  a  suitable 
halting  place.  Hereafter  I  hope  to  be  able  to  continue  the 
narrative  in  a  volume,  which  might  fitly  be  styled  the  "Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  Church  Empire."  This  Empire,  like  that  of 
Rome,  has  vanished,  but  has  left  its  mark  indelibly  upon  the 
world. 

I  have  deliberately  employed  terms  which  are  now  supposed 
to  be  unscientific  in  speaking  of  Dark  Ages  and  Middle 
Ages,  because  they  are  the  most  satisfactory  expressions  of 
my  meaning.  The  period  from  Gregory  I  to  the  first  half  of 
the  eleventh  century  witnessed  the  disappearance  of  the  civil- 
ization, and,  in  a  sense,  of  the  very  peoples  of  the  ancient 
world.  Dark  as  they  were,  the  times  were  illuminated  by  the 
success  and  expansion  of  the  Christian  religion.  After  this 
arose  a  new  fabric  of  social  order,  called  Medievalism,  with 
an  art,  political  ideas  and  a  philosophy  of  its  own.  Much  has 
come  down  to  us;  for,  in  a  sense,  we  are  still  in  the  Middle 
Ages. 


PREFACE  IX 

Many  of  my  friends  have  allowed  me  to  occupy  much 
valuable  time  in  the  discussion  of  various  points.  My  col- 
leagues at  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  have  been  unfailing 
in  their  sympathy  and  assistance.  Professor  E.  F.  Scott  has 
read  all  the  proof  sheets;  Professor  Rockwell  has  revised  the 
bibliographies;  Professor  H.  Ward  has  given  me  the  benefit  of  his 
advice  on  the  economic  history  of  Chapter  XIII;  Professor 
Fagnani  has  saved  me  from  several  mistakes  in  Chapter  XIV; 
I  have  to  thank  Professor  E.  Munroe  Smith  of  Columbia 
University  for  revising  and  correcting  the  legal  statements  in 
Chapter  VIII.  I  have  also  to  acknowledge  the  help  I  received 
from  my  brother  fellow  Mr.  B.  L.  Manning  of  Jesus  College, 
Cambridge,  and  the  good  advice  given  from  the  Roman 
Catholic  standpoint  by  Mrs.  Charles  B.  Perkins  of  Boston, 
Mass.  The  Index  has  been  prepared  as  a  gracious  act  of  friend- 
ship by  Miss  Helen  Maud  Slee.  The  literary  assistance  I 
received  from  my  friend,  the  late  Professor  Barrett  Wendell, 
to  whose  memory  I  have  dedicated  this  book,  was  invaluable. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTERS  PAGES 

I.    The  Pillars  of  the  Medieval  Church        .        .        .  1-27 

II.    The  Church  and  the  Empire 28-56 

III.  The  So-called  Dark  Ages 57-85 

IV.  The  Church  Empire  of  the  West        ....  86-114 
V.    The  Revival  and  Reorganization  of  the  Papacy      .  1 15-144 

VI.    The  Crusades 145-171 

VII.     Learning  and  Heresy  in  the  Early  Middle  Ages    .  172-196 

VIII.    The  Medieval  Church  as  a  Disciplinary  Institution  197-219 

IX.    The  Friars — The  Schoolmen  —  The  Universities    .  220-244 

X.    The  Papacy  and  the  House  of  Hohenstaufen  .        .  245-272 

XI.    The  French  Monarchy  and  the  Papacy     .        .        .  273-298 

XII.     England 299-327 

XIII.  A  Survey  of  Society 328-353 

XIV.  Dante  and  the  Decay  of  Medievalism       .        .        .  354-381 

List  of  Important  Popes 382-385 

Index 387-39° 

Maps  : 

Principal  Sees  and  Monasteries  of  Western  Europe  .  86 

Medieval  Europe  to  Illustrate  the  Crusades       .        .  146 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE 
HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    PILLARS   OF   THE    MEDIEVAL   CHURCH 

Monasticism  and  the  Papacy 

The  Middle  Ages  are  hard  to  define  —  Sense  in  which  the  word  medieval  is  employed 
—  Why  the  sixth  century  has  been  selected  —  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and  Jerome, 
classicists  —  Gregory  the  Great  medieval  —  World  renunciation  —  Monasti- 
cism and  the  Papacy  —  Asceticism  in  primitive  Christianity  —  Rapid  spread  of 
Monasticism  —  Benedict  of  Nursia, —  Rule  of  St.  Benedict  —  Missionary  activity 
of  the  monks  —  Clergy  become  monastic  —  The  Breviary  —  Monasticism  pre- 
served civilization  —  Growth  of  an  hierarchy  of  Bishops  —  Antioch  —  Alex- 
andra —  Constantinople  and  Jerusalem  —  Rome  and  the  Western  Church  — 
The  early  popes  —  Rome  becomes  a  holy  city  —  Rise  of  the  medieval  papacy  — 
The  City  of  Rome  from  Justinian  to  Gregory  —  Rome  attracts  pilgrims  —  Rome 
has  to  depend  on  herself  for  protection  —  Papal  estates  —  Gregory  a  Roman 
Noble  —  Gregory  at  Constantinople  —  The  Dialogues  —  Gregory  and  relics  — 
Primacy  of  Rome  —  Gregory  and  Maurice  —  John  the  Faster  —  Ravenna  and 
the  "pall"  —  Gregory  and  the  Episcopate  —  Conversion  of  the  English  —  The 
Papal  Administration  —  Dramatic  appeal  of  the  Church  in  Rome  (a)  Gregory's 
procession  —  (b)  Baptismal  ceremonial  —  (c)  The  Mass  —  The  Canon  — 
Gregory's  additions. 

It  cannot  be  determined  precisely  where  the  line  between 
medieval  and  early  Christianity  is  to  be  drawn.  The  historian 
who  attempts  to  do  this  must  know  that  he  cannot  succeed, 
because  there  are  no  definite  periods  in  history.  Just  as  in  life 
it  is  impossible  to  say  when  a  man  passes  from  boyhood  to 
youth  or  from  youth  to  middle  age,  so,  because  there  is  a  con- 
tinuity in  history  as  in  life,  it  cannot  be  alleged  at  this  period  a 
certain  age  ends  and  another  commences.  Yet  both  in  the  life- 
time of  an  individual,  and  also  in  the  longer  story  of  a  great 
institution  like  the  Church,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  certain 
traits  and  characteristics  belong  to  middle  age  rather  than 
youth.  For  this  reason  the  first  step  will  be  to  state  what  seem 


2  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  be  characteristics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  next  to  say 
why  a  date  has  been  chosen  even  somewhat  arbitrarily  as  a 
starting  point. 

The  adjective  "medieval"  is  applied  to  the  civilization 
which  was  created  after  the  complete  break  up  of  the  earlier 
Graeco-Roman  society.  It  can  only  strictly  be  employed  in  this 
sense  of  the  Western  half  of  the  Christian  Church,  because  the 
civilization  which  radiated  from  Constantinople  was,  till  its 
destruction  by  Turkish  barbarism,  that  of  the  ancient  world. 
New  Rome  had  for  eleven  centuries  conserved  the  art,  the 
literature,  the  laws  of  Greece  and  Imperial  Rome.  She  had 
never  sunk  into  the  barbarous  condition  of  the  ancient  city  in 
the  ninth,  tenth,  and  first  half  of  the  eleventh  centuries.  Nor 
had  the  lands  under  the  sway  of  the  Caesars  of  Byzantium  suf- 
fered the  utter  destruction  which  had  overwhelmed  the  Gauls, 
Spain,  and  Britain,  and  compelled  the  reconstruction  of  society 
with  little  assistance  from  the  experience  of  the  past. 

The  Western  world  began  to  build  from  the  very  founda- 
tion and  in  so  doing  developed  a  new  structure  of  society,  a 
new  art,  and  a  new  learning.  For  a  time  at  least  the  old 
classical  culture  was  abandoned,  and  in  its  place  an  endeavour 
was  made  to  create  a  civilization  entirely  Christian.  In  the 
East  the  Empire  was  continued  and  became  Christian;  but  in 
the  West  a  Christian  Empire  was  deliberately  recreated  after 
the  lapse  of  centuries.  The  Gothic  cathedral,  with  its  rejection 
of  classic  forms  and  its  new  conceptions  of  beauty,  is  a  perma- 
nent symbol  of  the  spirit  of  medieval  reconstruction;  and  even 
scholastic  learning  was,  not  so  much  an  attempt  to  bring  Aris- 
totle into  accord  with  Christianity,  as  to  make  the  old  Christian 
learning  conform  to  the  laws  of  the  newly  discovered  Aristotle. 

For  this  reason  it  has  been  decided  to  commence  the  story 
of  the  Middle  Ages  neither  with  the  Peace  of  the  Church  in 
A.D.  313,  nor  with  the  so-called  end  of  the  Western  Empire, 
though  much  may  be  said  in  favour  of  both  dates.  When  the 
persecution,  begun  by  Diocletian,  was  ended  finally  by  the 
edict  of  Milan,  the  compact  between  the  Christian  Church  and 
the  Roman  Empire  to  unite  to  rule  mankind  was  really  initi- 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  3 

ated.  The  vision  of  Constantine  which  assured  him  that  Jesus 
would  protect  the  army  with  the  standard  of  the  labarum  is  as 
medieval  as  the  discovery  of  the  true  Cross  by  his  mother  St. 
Helena.  So  again,  when  Odovacar  handed  over  the  imperial 
insignia  to  Constantinople  with  a  message  to  the  Emperor 
Zeno  that  an  Augustus  was  no  longer  needed  in  Italy,  it  was 
the  beginning  of  an  era  in  which  the  barbarian  Teutons  openly 
recognized  themselves  as  the  real  rulers  of  the  Western  prov- 
inces; and  this  might  fitly  be  made  an  excuse  for  alleging  that 
the  Middle  Ages  had  already  begun.  The  reason  for  choosing  a 
later  date  is,  however,  the  distinction  to  be  drawn  between  the 
medieval  Christian  and  his  predecessors  who  may  be  said 
more  properly  to  belong  to  the  classical  period. 

Three  of  the  four  great  fathers  of  the  West,  Ambrose, 
Augustine,  and  Jerome,  were  educated,  if  not  under  pagan,  at 
least  under  classical  influences.  Ambrose,  as  is  well  known,  was 
elected  Bishop  of  Milan,  when  he  was  an  unbaptized  official, 
present  in  the  city  in  order  to  keep  the  peace  between  the  rival 
Christian  factions.  He  had  been  brought  up  and  educated  as  a 
Roman  gentleman  of  the  fourth  century.  He  drew  many  of  his 
ideas  during  his  episcopate  from  the  books  he  had  studied  in 
his  youth.  His  ethics,  for  example,  are  based  as  much  on  Cicero 
as  on  the  Wisdom  books  of  the  Old  Testament  or  on  the  moral 
teaching  of  the  New.  Augustine,  an  African  born  in  a  humbler 
rank  of  life,  but  educated  for  academic  employment,  though 
his  mother  was  a  devout  Christian,  became  one  himself  only 
after  a  long  search.  Acquiring  an  admiration  for  virtue  from 
Cicero's  Hortensius,  he  sought  for  truth  in  vain  among  the 
Manichaeans,  and  found  it  partially  in  Neo-platonism.  All  the 
while  he  was  acting  as  a  teacher  in  different  universities, 
Carthage,  Rome  and  Milan.  As  for  Jerome,  who  was  not  born 
in  a  position  entitling  him  to  take  part  in  the  administration 
of  the  Empire,  nor  with  the  necessity  of  making  a  living  by  the 
drudgery  of  professorial  labour,  he  was  far  better  equipped  as 
a  scholar  than  either  of  his  famous  contemporaries,  and 
throughout  his  life  he  affects  to  deplore  the  fatal  fascination 
which  the  classical  literature  exercised  on  his  mind.  In  vain  did 


4  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

he  try  to  recollect  that  an  angel  had  told  him,  "Thou  art  not  a 
Christian,  but  a  Ciceronian." 

Very  different  is  the  fourth  great  father,  Pope  Gregory  I. 
Like  Ambrose  he  was  born  of  a  patrician  family,  and  began  life 
as  a  civil  administrator,  rising  to  the  dignity  of  prefect  of  Rome. 
But  here  the  parallel  ceases.  By  education  he  was  a  Christian, 
and  no  humanist.  He  has  no  hankering  after  the  beauties  of 
antiquity;  to  him  they  are  pagan  and  nothing  more.  He  writes 
well,  because  he  is  an  honest  capable  man  who  has  something 
worth  saying,  not  because  he  has  studied  the  best  models  and 
is  anxious  about  his  style.  His  outlook  is  not  that  of  a  converted 
pagan,  but  of  a  Christian  born  and  bred.  In  him  the  classical 
age,  which  closed  with  Boethius,  is  dead  and  a  new  era  has 
begun. 

For  a  spirit  had  come  into  the  world  which  completely 
changed  the  old  order.  With  the  cessation  of  persecution  the 
monastic  movement  had  begun;  and  of  the  Middle  Ages  it  may 
be  said  that  everybody  was  a  monk  at  heart,  in  the  sense  that 
no  man  was  so  usefully  employing  his  life  for  the  benefit  of 
others,  but  he  acknowledged  that  the  summons  of  the  monas- 
tery or  of  the  hermit's  cell  was  a  call  to  better  things,  and  even 
sinners  believed  that  repentance  could  most  surely  be  found  in 
the  self-torture  of  solitary  asceticism.  To  all  men  the  monastic 
life  represented  the  highest  goal  on  this  earth.  In  this  way  the 
medieval  ideal  is  quite  distinct  from  the  modern,  which  places 
service  as  a  citizen,  as  the  head  of  a  family,  as  a  worker  for 
others,  far  above  the  life  of  contemplation,  whereas  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  it  was  held  that  the  more  a  man  devoted  himself  to 
meditation  and  subjugation  of  the  flesh  to  the  spirit  the  more 
pleasing  was  he  in  the  sight  of  God.  In  England,  and  later 
throughout  Europe,  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  sounded 
the  death-knell  of  medievalism. 

Monasticism  was  the  first  characteristic  of  this  long  period: 
the  second  was  respect  for  ecclesiastical  authority.  The  priest 
was  not  so  much  the  minister  or  servant  of  the  people  as  the 
intermediary  between  them  and  heaven,  the  dispenser  of  those 
blessings  without  which  salvation  was  impossible.  And  higher 


ve*ll,f 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  5 

than  all  priesthood  in  the  West  was  that  of  the  supreme  pon- 
tiff, the  representative  of  the  Chief  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  upon  earth.  In  a  word  monasticism  and  the 
papacy  were  the  cornerstones  of  the  medieval  system,  with- 
out which  the  edifice  raised  by  the  toil  of  ages  could  not  stand.  ■  1  ;> 
As  Christianity  was  originally  neither  an  ascetic  nor  an  hierar- 
chical religion,  the  first  thing  to  be  sought  is  how  it  became 
both  within  five  centuries  of  its  inception,  if  not  much  earlier. 
No  doubt  Jesus  Christ  often  withdrew  to  the  desert  for 
communion  with  God,  and  fasted  before  he  entered  upon 
his  mission  to  mankind.  Still  He  was  no  ascetic.  He  says  that 
he  came  "eating  and  drinking":  He  lived  among  men,  sharing 
in  their  homely  festivals,  and  not  disdaining  the  hospitality  of 
his  friends.  His  disciples  are  contrasted  with  those  of  John  and 
of  the  Pharisees,  who  fasted  often.  Nor  were  the  early  Chris- 
tians confused  with  any  of  the  ascetic  Jewish  sects.  But  the 
seriousness  of  the  call,  and  the  dread  of  impending  judgment 
predisposed  many  to  stricter  discipline,  which,  however,  was 
distrusted  by  some  wiser  Christians,  as  savouring  of  the  Gnostic 
abhorrence  of  material  existence.  But  the  almost  morbid  fear 
of  the  early  Church  of  anything  approaching  sexual  impurity 
led  to  asceticism,  and  to  the  belief  that  an  absolutely  virgin  life 
was  far  more  pleasing  to  God  than  the  performance  of  family 
duties.  Hence  in  most  churches  the  profession  of  virginity  be- 
came increasingly  popular.  Martyrdom  also  contributed  to  the 
practice  of  asceticism.  Those  who  looked  forward  to  the  con- 
test for  the  faith  before  the  judge  and  in  the  arena,  regarded 
themselves  as  "athletes  of  Christ"  and  trained  themselves  for 
the  trial  by  abstinence  and  mortification;  and  there  is  but  little 
doubt  that  the  extraordinary  insensibility  to  pain  manifested 
was  in  part  the  result  of  long  mental,  moral,  and,  perhaps, 
physical  discipline.  But  with  the  disappearance  of  the  danger 
of  martyrdom  Christian  zeal  sought  other  outlets.  The  Church, 
tolerated  and  favoured  by  imperial  authority,  could  not  satisfy 
the  zeal  which  had  but  recently  braved  the  fire  of  persecution; 
and  men  fled  from  a  half  heathen  world  to  seek  for  God  and 
wrestle  against  the  powers  of  evil  in  the  remotest  wilderness. 


6  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  the  first  decades  of  the  fourth  century  the  monks  had  spread 
themselves  throughout  the  deserts  of  Egypt. 

From  this  time  the  passion  for  monastic  life  spread  through- 
out the  Christian  world.  It  appeared  next  in  Syria.   In  340 
Athanasius  went  to  Rome,  it  is  said,  with  monks  in  his  com- 
pany, who  attracted  much  attention.  Before  the  close  of  the 
century  it  was  customary  to  visit  Egypt  in  order  to  study  the 
monks  in  their  original  home.  By  the  opening  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury there  were  monks  throughout  Gaul  and  in  distant  Britain. 
The  movement  was  lay  rather  than  clerical:  it  was  an  impulse 
which  drove  men  into  the  solitude  of  the  desert,  which  thou- 
sands were  forced  to  obey.  At  first  it  was  completely  unorgan- 
ized.   In    some    instances    the    solitaries    grouped    themselves 
around   some  renowned   ascete,   in  others  men  attempted  to 
work  out  their  own  salvation  by  themselves.  Gradually  some 
sort  of  order  was  found  to  be  indispensable,  and  rules  were  estab- 
lished for  groups  of  monks.  The  first  legislator  was  Pachom,  an 
Egyptian  who  established  a  community  at  Tabennae,  an  island 
on  the  Nile.  St.  Basil,  the  great  Bishop  of  Caesarea  (ob.  379), 
organized  the  monastic  communities  in  his  diocese  and  fur- 
nished them  with  his  rule  which  has  since  become  the  normal 
standard  of  Christian  monasticism  in  the  East.  About  this  time 
Jerome  was  living  among  the  Syrian  hermits  and  rivalling  them 
in  austerity.  A  little  later  Cassian  visited  Egypt  and  brought 
back  a  report  of  the  monastic  discipline  to  Gaul.  Rome  at- 
tracted hosts  of  monks,  some  of  them  impostors,  as  Jerome 
asserts,  who  preyed  on  the  fine  ladies  of  the  capital.  Jerome 
himself  directed  his  female  followers  in  asceticism  and  finally 
retired  to  the  Holy  Land  to  found  a  monastery  at  Bethlehem, 
whilst  his  noble  and  learned  friends,  Paula  and  Eustochium, 
dwelt  in  the  neighbouring  nunnery.  Augustine  was  converted 
by  hearing  of  the  austerities  of  the  monks  in  Egypt;  and  as  a 
bishop  lived   a  semi-monastic  life  surrounded  by  his  clergy. 
His  great  adversary  Pelagius  was  a  monk  of  Britain.  Within 
little  more  than  a  century  of  its  inception  the  monastic  life  had 
come   to   be   regarded    as   the   consummation   and    flower   of 
Christianity. 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  7 

The  great  epoch  of  Western  Monasticism,  however,  began 
in  the  sixth  century  with  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia,  the  founder 
of  the  celebrated  Benedictine  rule.  When  quite  a  boy  he  fled 
accompanied  by  his  nurse  to  the  site  of  Nero's  famous  villa  at 
Subiaco  (Sub  lacum).  There  he  practised  his  austerities  and 
attracted  disciples.  He  was  exposed  to  many  trials  from  the 
jealousy  of  the  neighbouring  monks,  and  when  he  accepted  the 
duty  of  abbot  over  some  of  them,  he  was  almost  poisoned  for 
endeavouring  to  bring  them  to  a  sense  of  their  obligations.  As, 
however,  the  fame  of  his  sanctity  increased  he  issued  to  his 
immediate  disciples  his  famous  Rule,  which,  though  only  in- 
tended for  the  monasteries  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Monte 
Cassino,  became  a  standard  for  all  western  monks.  His  advice 
is  remarkable  for  its  wisdom,  its  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
and  its  recognition  of  the  duty  of  work  as  well  as  devotion;  and 
it  is  noteworthy  that  in  later  days  every  reform  of  Benedictine 
Monasticism  lay  in  making  the  rule  of  the  saint  more  burthen- 
some.  The  greatest  testimony  to  his  wisdom,  however,  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  order,  which  adhered  faithfully  to  his  prin- 
ciples, outshone  all  those  who  tried  to  surpass  it  in  austerity; 
and  to  this  day  a  Benedictine  monastery  is  almost  inevitably 
a  home  of  learning.  With  the  founder,  however,  work  meant 
field  labour;  and  it  was  only  later  that  study  became  a  part  of 
the  Rule. 

When  one  studies  monastic  history,  and  sees  how  one  ascetic 
tried  to  surpass  the  other  in  extravagant  austerities,  the  char- 
acter of  the  Benedictine  rule  is  truly  surprising.  The  Roman  in 
the  founder  appears  in  his  love  of  order,  system,  regularity. 
There  is  a  sense  of  proportion  in  all  he  enjoins  and  at  the  same 
time  all  is  placed  on  the  highest  level  of  duty  to  God  and  desire 
to  please  Him.  The  great  virtues  recommended  are  ready 
obedience  to  superiors,  and  humility,  which  is  reached  by 
twelve  stages.  The  work  insisted  upon  is  to  be  that  best  suited 
to  the  monk.  If  he  has  a  trade  he  may  ply  it  for  the  benefit  of 
the  monastery.  The  rule  of  cloister  is  to  be  strictly  observed 
and  each  monastery  is  to  be,  if  possible,  self-supporting.  Ben- 
edict's own  monastery  of  Monte  Cassino  was  destroyed  by  the 


8  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Lombards  in  580  and  his  monks  and  his  rule  migrated  in  that 
year  to  Rome. 

Nothing  in  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  or  for  that  matter  in 
any  other  rule,  provides  for  monks  working  directly  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind:  the  ideal  is  seclusion.  The  monk  may  save 
the  world  by  his  piety  and  holiness;  but  it  is  not  part  of  his 
duty  to  labour  for  that  end.  Yet  in  its  great  days  monasticism 
could  never  be  a  purely  selfish  pursuit  of  virtue,  and  it  almost 
invariably  broke  through  the  bounds  of  the  cloister  for  the  sake 
of  the  world.  Monasticism  everywhere  became  a  great  mission- 
ary agency.  From  East  to  West  it  was  the  same.  Over  the  des- 
erts of  Central  Asia  Nestorian  monks  were  pressing  towards 
China;  Greek  monks  were  making  inroads  into  Russia;  Irish  or 
Scottish  monks  were  planting  monasteries  on  islands  on  the 
coast  of  Britain,  exploring  in  boats  of  oxhide  the  inland 
waterways,  and  preparing  to  invade  the  heathen  Angles, 
and  to  go  far  afield  in  pagan  Europe  with  the  message  of  the 
Gospel.  The  same  spirit  was  in  the  monks  of  St.  Andrew's  on 
the  Caelian  Hill,  whom  Gregory  selected  to  go  to  convert  Eng- 
land and  make  it  a  province  of  the  Roman  Church.  Centuries 
later,  when  Russia  was  groaning  under  the  tyranny  of  the 
Tatar  Khans,  it  was  her  Christian  monks  who  were  preparing 
for  her  vast  empire  by  founding  monasteries  far  beyond  her 
northern  frontiers,  and  in  distant  Siberia.  Whatever  were  the 
original  purpose  and  ideal  of  the  movement,  it  was  by  monks 
that  the  Christian  religion  was  being  carried  beyond  the 
bounds  of  the  Roman  Empire  at  the  height  of  its  glory.  The 
Christianity  of  the  new  nations  was,  unlike  that  of  the  first 
believers,  a  monastic  creed. 

With  the  appearance  of  monasticism  the  clergy  themselves 
tended  to  come  under  some  sort  of  ascetic  rule.  In  newly  founded 
missionary  churches  the  bishop  was  an  abbot  and  the  clergy 
a  convent  of  Benedictine  monks.  But  in  other  places  the  bishop 
and  his  priests  tended  to  form  a  community  under  some  mo- 
nastic rules;  and  it  is  claimed  that  such  clergy  or  "Canons," 
from  the  Greek  word  meaning  a  rule,  existed  from  the  very  age 
of  the  Apostles.  This  probably  contributed  to  make  it  a  law  in 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  9 

the  West,  that,  unlike  the  East,  all  the  priests  should  be  un- 
married. 

The  life  of  the  monk  was  naturally  spent  largely  in  prayer: 
and  in  the  West  the  expression  of  his  devotion  is  to  be  found  in 
the  Breviary.  The  Hours  of  Prayer  began  overnight  with 
Matins,  succeeded  before  daybreak  by  Lauds;  then  followed 
Prime,  Tierce,  Nones,  Sext,  Vespers  and  Compline.  This  in- 
cessant round  of  prayer  consisted  originally  of  the  recitation  of 
the  hundred  and  fifty  psalms  but  gradually  developed  into  de- 
votions more  varied,  and  possibly  more  edifying.  The  Psalms 
were  rearranged  and  divided  into  Nocturns,  their  recitation 
was  broken  by  readings  from  Scripture,  anthems,  antiphons, 
and  responses.  The  stories  of  the  saints  were  read  as  legenda 
(things  to  be  read,  hence  our  word  "legend").  Short  expressive 
prayers  occur,  and  also  hymns.  A  calendar  regulated  the  offices 
for  the  day.  There  was  no  necessary  uniformity;  but  the  basis 
of  all  was  the  Psalter;  out  of  this  was  gradually  evolved  the 
Breviary  which  has  to  be  said  daily  by  every  Roman  Catholic 
priest,  and  is  otherwise  known  as  the  Divine  Office.  From  this 
is  derived  the  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer  of  the  Church  of 
England,  which  has  adapted  a  monastic  service  to  congrega- 
tional use. 

For  nearly  a  thousand  years  the  monastic  ideal  was  in  a 
sense  to  dominate  the  Western  Church  and  it  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  thereby  Christianity  was  saved  from  being 
utterly  overwhelmed  by  the  constant  inroads  of  the  barbarians. 
Nor  can  it  safely  be  said  that  its  influence  is  dead,  or  that  it 
will  not  again  assert  itself  in  Christianity.  In  a  falling  world, 
like  that  of  the  age  which  ushered  in  the  medieval  period,  men 
were  impelled  to  take  refuge  in  the  desert,  the  cloister  or  the 
forest  that  they  might  at  least  save  their  own  souls  from  the 
impending  destruction.  Circumstances  forced  many  to  acknowl- 
edge the  emptiness  and  misery  of  life  on  earth  and  to  look  for 
happiness  outside  the  world.  That  those  who  did  so  were  not  all 
actuated  by  base  or  cowardly  motives  is  proved  by  the  services 
of  the  monks  to  mankind.  Whether  their  world  denying  ethics 
will  again  be  demanded  to  save  civilization  time  alone  can  show. 


IO  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  Medieval  Church  in  the  West  was  a  body  which 
tended  more  and  more  to  centralize  authority  in  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Though  in  theory  all  bishops  were  endowed  with  equal 
powers,  those  who  presided  over  the  most  important  cities 
exercised  increasing  influence  over  their  brethren.  Long  before 
the  Peace  of  the  Church,  Rome,  Alexandria,  and  Antioch  were 
looked  up  to  by  all  the  surrounding  churches,  whilst  Carthage 
had  evidently  extensive  jurisdiction  over  the  numerous  epis- 
copate of  Africa  and  Numidia.  But  not  only  were  the  bishops 
of  great  capitals  and  sees  of  apostolic  foundation  regarded 
with  respect,  those  of  the  leading  provincial  cities  enjoyed  a 
sort  of  local  primacy.  Thus  before  the  Church  entered  into 
relations  with  the  Empire  the  principles  of  an  hierarchy  of 
bishops  existed,  though  the  distinguishing  titles  of  archbishop, 
patriarch,  etc.,  had  not  yet  come  into  use. 

The  three  sees  of  Rome,  Alexandria  and  Antioch  had  long 
been  recognized  as  the  leading  bishoprics.  Of  these  the  most 
ancient  was  Antioch,  where  the  believers  were  first  called 
Christians,  whence  Barnabas  and  Saul  started  on  their  mission- 
ary journey,  where  Paul  withstood  Peter  on  the  question  of 
Gentile  liberty.  It  was  also  famous  for  having  sent  Ignatius,  its 
bishop,  the  greatest  of  all  the  primitive  martyrs,  to  die  at  Rome 
for  the  Faith.  The  city  was,  moreover,  recognized  as  the  capital 
of  the  East  and  its  bishop  was  regarded  as  the  leader  of  churches 
stretching  far  beyond  the  frontiers  of  the  Empire. 

The  peculiar  position  of  Alexandria  as  capital  of  Egypt, 
which  was  not  a  province  of  the  Roman  Republic,  but  the 
personal  property  of  Caesar,  gave  its  bishop  an  unique  status. 
For  a  long  time  he  was  the  only  bishop  in  Egypt,  nor  did  he 
originally  seek  his  orders  at  the  hands  of  his  episcopal  brethren. 
The  twelve  great  presbyters  of  Alexandria  elected  one  of  their 
number,  and  placed  him  in  the  episcopal  throne.  The  church 
could  not  boast  an  apostolic  founder,  but  its  origin  was  traced 
to  the  Evangelist  St.  Mark,  once  the  companion  of  St.  Paul, 
and  distinguished  by  St.  Peter  as  "Marcus  my  son."  It  claimed 
the  position  of  the  second  see  after  Rome. 

Two  other  sees  were  destined  to  enjoy  with  Alexandria  and 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  II 

Antioch  the  dignity  of  a  patriarchate.  Constantinople  or  New 
Rome  was  given  by  the  Second  General  Council  a  place  only 
inferior  to  that  of  Old  Rome,  and  after  much  controversy  it 
became  the  second  see  of  Christendom;  and  Jerusalem  which 
had,  after  the  destructions  of  the  Jewish  city  by  the  Romans, 
become  a  gentile  city,  called  iElia  Capitolina,  was  added  to 
the  patriarchates,  though  its  jurisdiction  was  very  limited. 

But  the  West  was  not  partitioned  out  like  the  East.  It  was 
a  patriarchate  of  itself  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  bishop  of 
the  capital  of  the  world.  Not  that  the  Roman  Church  claimed 
its  position  because  of  the  earthly  glory  of  the  city.  It  had 
other  and  more  spiritual  claims  to  reverence.  Peter  and  Paul 
were  its  founders:  and  both  had  testified  to  the  faith  by  death 
in  Rome.  The  martyrs  of  the  first  and  most  terrible  persecution 
by  Nero  suffered  there.  Clement,  the  friend  of  Paul  and  follower 
of  Peter,  a  name  held  in  the  highest  honour  in  history  and 
legend,  was  Bishop  of  Rome.  Ignatius  had  written  to  the 
Roman  Church  on  his  way  to  martyrdom  in  the  City,  as  to  the 
church  which  held  "the  primacy  of  love";  Irenaeus  had  taught 
at  Rome  and  declared  that  there  the  true  tradition,  handed 
down  from  the  days  of  its  founders,  was  preserved.  In  the  days 
of  doubt  and  difficulty,  when  in  every  church  bishops  of  sus- 
picious orthodoxy  had  presided,  Arians  in  Constantinople  and 
Antioch,  Monophysites  at  Alexandria,  the  Roman  pontiff*  had 
always  maintained  the  Faith.  He  had  proved  himself  the  pro- 
tector of  those  whom  the  East  had  unjustly  condemned,  like 
Athanasius  and  John  Chrysostom;  he  had  stricken  down  here- 
tics like  Nestorius  and  E^tyches.  Such  were  the  claims  of 
Rome  to  respect  in  antiquity,  and  even  though  in  this  enumera- 
tion a  few  less  creditable  incidents,  like  the  alleged  Arianism 
of  Liberius,  have  been  conveniently  ignored,  the  tradition  of 
the  Roman  Church  was  more  honourable  than  that  of  any  great 
Oriental  sees. 

The  See  of  Rome  was  fortunate  in  producing  but  rarely  a 
bishop  of  outstanding  personality,  so  that  its  prestige  was  due 
rather  to  its  peculiar  importance  than  to  the  commanding 
genius  of  any  individual.  Indeed  none  of  the  greatest  of  the 


12  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

early  fathers,  with  the  sole  exception  of  Hippolytus,  belonged 
to  the  Roman  Church.  Rome  had  no  worthies  to  compare 
with  the  Tertullians,  Cyprians  and  Augustines  of  Africa,  with 
Alexandrians  such  as  Clement,  Origen,  Athanasius,  Didymus, 
and  Cyril,  with  men  of  Asiatic  birth  like  Polycarp,  Irenaeus, 
Polycrates  of  Ephesus,  and  Theophilus  of  Antioch.  No  mar- 
tyred bishop  of  Rome  appealed  to  popular  imagination  like 
Ignatius  and  Pothinus  of  Antioch.  Yet  when  a  pope  does  emerge 
from  obscurity  it  is  almost  invariably  as  a  man  of  sound  prac- 
tical judgment,  often  morally  superior  to  his  contemporaries. 
The  Epistle  written  by  the  Church  of  Rome  to  Corinth,  which 
is  associated  with  the  name  of  Clement,  though  it  never  occurs 
in  the  letter,  is,  though  a  fantastic  production,  full  of  good 
sense.  Anicetus  treated  Polycarp  with  Christian  courtesy.  Vic- 
tor at  least  saw  that  Montanism  was  likely  to  disturb  the 
church,  and  acted  with  vigour.  Despite  the  invectives  of  Hip- 
polytus one  can  recognize  in  Callistus  an  excellent  adminis- 
trator. In  later  times  Julius's  conduct  in  the  Arian  controversy 
was  admirable.  Innocent,  early  in  the  next  century,  behaved 
justly  and  honourably  in  his  defence  of  John  Chrysostom. 

The  early  popes  therefore  did  little  to  hinder,  if  they  dis- 
played no  great  genius  in  advancing,  the  claims  of  the  See  of 
Rome.  But  the  reverence  for  the  City  of  Rome  as  the  capital 
of  the  Christian  world  grew  steadily.  The  earliest  Christians 
regarded  Rome  as  Babylon  "drunk  with  the  blood  of  the 
saints,"  but  in  a  few  generations  the  City  became  holy,  sancti- 
fied by  the  blood  of  the  martyrs.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
how  the  church,  though  entitled  that  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul, 
became  actually  entirely  devoted  to  the  memory  and  the 
honour  of  St.  Peter;  for  it  is  not  without  significance  that  Paul 
lies  far  from  the  city  on  the  Ostian  way. 

But  great  as  was  the  influence  of  the  Roman  See  and 
Bishop,  and  although  Leo  the  Great  had  played  a  most  impor- 
tant part  in  the  church  and  even  in  the  politics  of  the  time,  the 
day  of  the  Papacy,  in  the  medieval  sense  of  the  term,  was  not 
yet.  As  long  as  the  Roman  imperial  authority  was  of  influence  in 
Italy  and  men  could  look  for  help  to  the  Emperor  or  even  his 


THE   PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  1 3 

deputy,  so  long  the  Pope  was  no  more  than  the  Bishop  of  the 
first  see  in  Christendom.  But  the  time  was  to  come,  when  all 
the  civilized  inhabitants  of  Italy  groaning  under  barbarian 
tyranny  would  seek  help  in  vain  from  Emperor  and  Exarch, 
and  find  their  only  resource  in  the  Roman  Pontiff.  This  hap- 
pened at  the  close  of  the  sixth  century  when  the  Romans 
found  an  effectual  protector  in  Gregory  I,  whose  pontificate 
suggested  the  idea  but  rarely  realized,  of  the  head  of  the 
Roman  Church  representing  the  order  of  the  ancient  Empire 
and  acting  as  the  main  prop  of  the  shaking  fabric  of  civilization. 

Rightly  to  understand  the  significance  of  the  work  of  Greg- 
ory the  Great  it  is  necessary  to  recapitulate  the  fortunes  of 
Rome  from  the  accession  of  Justinian,  A.D.  527. 

The  Catholic  Church  had  never  submitted  willingly  to  the 
rule  of  Theodoric  and  his  Ostrogoths.  Whatever  were  its  merits, 
it  was  barbarian  and  Arian;  and,  as  Romans  and  Catholics, 
the  people  resented  it.  When  therefore  Theodoric  was  dead, 
and  the  Emperor  was  sending  his  armies  to  reconquer  Italy 
from  the  foreign  yoke,  they  were  welcomed  by  the  native  in- 
habitants. But  the  terrible  and  "truceless"  war  against  the 
Ostrogoths  with  the  repeated  sieges  of  Rome  utterly  ruined 
the  City;  and  at  one  time  it  is  said  to  have  been  entirely  un- 
inhabited. Not  that  it  was  a  city  of  ruins:  no  sieges  without 
cannon  could  have  made  it  that.  It  still  stood  with  its  houses, 
temples,  baths,  theatres,  and  aqueducts,  but  all  were  empty 
and  idle.  Nor  would  Rome  as  the  capital  of  the  world  have  in 
this  century  attracted  a  population.  So  far  as  one  can  judge  the 
interest  in  its  old  glories  had  vanished.  What  drew  men  back 
to  its  deserted  streets  were  the  relics  of  the  martyrs,  the 
churches,  and,  above  all,  the  tombs  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 
Rome  arose  from  her  desolation  a  holy  city. 

The  tendency  to  regard  Rome  as  a  sacred  spot  began  with 
the  removal  of  the  seat  of  government  from  the  imperial  city. 
It  is  found  in  the  heathen  poets  of  the  period  as  well  as  among 
the  Christians.  Damasus  (366-384)  restored  and  redecorated 
the  catacombs,  and  thus  attracted  pilgrims  from  all  parts.  And 
as  old  Rome  became  less  and  less  of  interest,  with  the  loss  of 


14  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  books  and  leisure  necessary  to  study  the  story  of  ancient 
days,  new  Rome,  with  her  legends  of  Early  Christian  saints, 
and  her  immense  store  of  potent  wonder-working  relics  became 
the  centre  of  pious  pilgrimages.  For  it  is  a  noteworthy  fact, 
and  one  which  makes  the  close  of  the  sixth  century  the  begin- 
ning of  medievalism  especially  in  the  West,  that  the  interest 
in  antiquity  seemed  to  cease.  The  great  fathers  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries  had  been,  as  a  rule,  educated  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  old  world,  and  never  lost  their  literary  culture. 
Gregory  the  Great,  the  fourth  great  Latin  father,  is,  as  has 
been  said,  purely  patristic.  His  interests  are  wholly  Christian, 
and  no  angel  was  required  to  rebuke  him,  as  Jerome  had  been  in 
his  vision.  Rome  had  become  uncompromisingly  Christian 
when  he  ascended  the  papal  throne. 

But  further,  Christian  Rome,  though  no  longer  more  than 
the  titular  capital  of  the  Empire,  had  perforce  to  become  self- 
protecting.  The  conquest  of  Italy  by  Justinian's  generals, 
Belisarius  and  Narses,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Gothic  king- 
dom was  a  disaster  in  that  it  placed  the  peninsula  under  a 
government,  powerless  to  protect,  and  efficient  only  to  tax 
the  inhabitants.  The  semi-civilized  Ostrogoths  made  way  for 
the  uncivilized  Lombards,  who  poured  in  as  conquerors,  con- 
fining the  territory  of  the  Empire  to  the  district  around  Ra- 
venna, the  duchies  of  Rome  and  Naples  and  the  south.  Pressed 
on  all  sides  the  Romans  had  perforce  to  organize  in  their  de- 
fence and  were  compelled  to  turn  from  the  Greek  administra- 
tors, who  were  corrupt  and  inefficient,  to  their  own  bishop, 
who  thus  became  more  and  more  a  temporal  ruler,  in  other 
words,  a  Pope  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word. 

The  correspondence  of  Gregory  I  reveals  that  in  his  day 
the  Pope  was  the  richest  man  in  Italy.  How  acquired  we  know 
not,  but  certainly  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  he  owned  land 
in  all  parts  of  the  Empire,  and  especially  in  Sicily.  In  such  a 
city  as  Rome,  without  industries,  and  a  population  mainly 
clerical,  the  possession  of  wealth  entailed  the  duty  of  feeding 
the  people.  The  Pope  really  took  the  place  of  the  Emperor, 
whose  first  duty  had  been  to  keep  the  capital  fed  and  amused. 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  1 5 

Gregory's  energies  were  necessarily  devoted  to  providing  the 
people  with  panis;  and  fortunately  he  possessed  unusual 
ability  in  business.  As  a  Christian  bishop  he  naturally  could 
not  emulate  the  great  men  of  ancient  Rome  in  giving  circenses; 
but,  as  an  alternative,  he  provided  ecclesiastical  processions  and 
ceremonies,  qualified  to  absorb  the  interest  of  a  population 
which  largely  consisted  of  an  idle,  if  pious,  proletariat. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  very  greatest  of  the  Popes  have 
been  Romans,  or  men  whose  previous  career  had  been  entirely 
devoted  to  the  business  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  There  have 
been  some  really  great  men,  who  have  been  called  upon  to 
preside  over  the  Church  from  other  countries;  and  even,  con- 
trary to  early  practice,  from  other  dioceses,  but  these  popes 
have  either  been  unpopular  with  the  Roman  people  or  have  not 
been  able  to  survive  the  climate  long  enough  to  make  a  mark. 
St.  Gregory  I,  perhaps  the  greatest,  and  probably  the  best  man 
who  ever  occupied  the  chair  of  St.  Peter,  was  no  exception.  He 
was  a  Roman  of  the  Romans.  Born  of  good  family,  descended 
from  a  pope,  Felix  III  (483-492)  or  Felix  IV  (526-530),  the 
son  of  a  Roman  noble  called  Gordianus  and  his  wife  Silvia, 
Gregory  had  held  the  secular  office  of  Praefectus  Urbis,  in 
ancient  days  one  of  the  most  honourable  in  the  Empire,  and 
even  then  a  position  of  considerable  importance,  and  great 
responsibility.  At  his  father's  death,  however,  he  made  over 
the  fortune  he  inherited  for  religious  purposes,  founding  seven 
monasteries,  the  most  famous  being  the  one  which  he  himself 
joined,  that  of  St.  Andrew  on  the  Caelian  Hill. 

Pope  Pelagius  appointed  Gregory  his  ambassador  to  Con- 
stantinople when  he  remained  for  about  seven  years.  Strange 
to  say  he  never  was  able  to  acquire  any  knowledge  of  the  lan- 
guage, though  Greek  was  already  officially  employed  in  New 
Rome.  This  obtuseness  in  being  powerless  to  learn  another 
tongue  shows  itself  not  infrequently  in  men  of  undoubted 
genius.  St.  Augustine,  for  example,  though  a  Latin  rhetorician 
of  no  ordinary  eminence,  confesses  that,  when  taught  Greek  at 
school,  he  never  could  gain  a  working  knowledge  of  the  lan- 
guage. The  historian  Procopius  visited  Italy  and  carried  away 


1 6  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

no  Latin.  Lord  Clive,  though  he  won  the  confidence  of  the 
natives  as  few  Englishmen  have  done,  and  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  the  British  Empire  in  India,  as  much  by  his  adminis- 
trative as  by  his  political  and  military  skill,  was  only  able  to 
communicate  with  the  Hindoos  through  an  interpreter.  The 
fact  is  that  linguistic  ability,  whilst  sometimes  an  indication, 
is  by  no  means  a  guarantee  of  exceptional  mental  power. 
Gregory  was  unquestionably  a  highly  gifted  man  despite  the 
fact  that  he  was  deficient  in  the  power,  or  perhaps  the  desire, 
to  learn  Greek. 

In  Gregory  both  the  weakness  and  the  strength  of  the 
medieval  mind  appear  to  be  almost  incarnate,  and  it  is  sur- 
prising, after  acknowledging  his  versatility,  his  powers  of  or- 
ganization, his  ability  to  govern  men,  his  singular  discernment 
both  in  political  and  personal  affairs,  to  notice  the  limitations 
of  his  mind  in  certain  directions.  But  in  these  lay  also  his 
strength.  He  was  great  not  because  he  was  before  his  time,  but 
because  he  represented  the  feelings  of  his  age  as  a  leader  of  men. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  it  is  necessary  to  lay  more  stress  on 
the  defect  of  his  mind  than  on  its  many  excellencies,  since  there- 
by one  gains  an  insight  into  the  thought  of,  not  only  his  age, 
but  of  that  of  many  succeeding  generations.  In  the  Dialogues 
written  in  593  his  almost  unbounded  credulity  on  certain 
points  is  revealed.  That  it  is  not  of  the  populus  vult  decipi  decip- 
iatur  type,  but  absolutely  sincere,  is  evident.  The  title  of  the 
work  in  full  is  "The  four  books  of  Gregory  the  Pope  concern- 
ing the  Life  and  Miracles  of  Italian  Fathers  and  concerning 
the  Eternity  of  Souls."  One  book,  the  second,  is  devoted  to  the 
Life  of  St.  Benedict,  the  earliest  in  existence.  Part  of  the  work 
records  the  miracles  of  holy  men  in  Italy,  some  still  alive,  and 
few  who  had  not  been  living  within  the  last  seventy  years. 
The  form  in  which  the  stories  are  related  is  that  of  a  dialogue 
between  Gregory  and  his  beloved  son,  Peter  the  Deacon.  The 
Pope,  wearied  with  the  secular  business  of  his  office,  has  re- 
tired sad  of  heart  to  a  garden.  There  Peter  joins  him  and  hears 
his  regrets  that  he  cannot  enjoy  the  life  of  those  "Who  with 
their  whole  minds  have  left  this  present  world."  Peter,  one  of 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  17 

those  useful  dull  men  who  ask  the  questions  and  raise  the  ob- 
jections which  provoke  diffuse  answers,  says  he  knows  of  no 
such  men,  and  if  they  wrought  miracles,  he  never  heard  of 
them.  Then  Gregory  promises  to  tell  him  what  he  himself  had 
heard.  In  some  instances,  however,  the  extreme  rusticity  of 
his  informants  had  prevented  him  using  their  exact  words. 

The  unseen  world  is  all  around.  A  Jew  sleeps  in  a  temple  of 
Apollo  and  hears  demons  exulting  at  the  fact  that  a  bishop 
named  Andrew  had  treated  his  housekeeper  with  an  innocent 
familiarity,  which  opened  a  prospect  of  worse  things.  Germanus, 
bishop  of  Capua,  goes  to  take  a  course  of  baths;  and  in  the 
natural  vapours  he  beholds  Paschasius,  a  deacon  who  was 
supposed  to  have  died  in  the  odour  of  sanctity.  Valentinus,  "a 
shifty  person  and  addicted  to  levity,"  is  buried  in  a  church  and 
dragged  out  shrieking  by  demons.  The  devil  in  the  form  of  a 
black  boy  attracts  a  monk  away  from  prayers,  and  is  seen 
doing  so  by  St.  Benedict.  Satan  appears  to  the  saint  with 
flaming  mouth  and  flashing  eyes.  He  disguises  himself  as  a 
doctor  to  get  into  a  monastery,  he  throws  down  the  wall  and 
kills  a  young  monk.  Two  gossiping  nuns  die  impenitent  and 
have  to  leave  the  church  when  the  deacon  cries,  "If  there  be 
any  that  communicate  not  let  him  depart."1 

The  soul  is  seen  to  depart  from  the  body.  Bystanders  see 
it  ascend  in  the  form  of  a  dove.  On  the  other  hand,  the  soul  of 
Theodoric,  the  great  Ostrogothic  King  of  Italy,  is  cast  down  in 
the  sight  of  a  hermit  into  the  crater  of  Lipari.  Miracles  are 
constant,  even  the  dead  are  raised  to  life.  As  is  not  uncommon 
in  other  medieval  records  these  supernatural  occurrences  are 
excellently  attested. 

The  reverence  for  the  relics  of  the  saints  and  martyrs,  and 
the  credulity  with  which  they  were  regarded,  had  reached 
almost  to  its  climax.  Gregory  certainly  did  nothing  to  check 
this  impulse,  which  he  doubtless  considered  to  be  highly  salu- 
tary. He  was  accustomed  to  send  filings  from  the  chairs  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul  in  little  crosses.  "Let  this,"  he  writes  to 

1  An  interesting  indication  that  the  service  then  followed  the  Greek  rather  than  the 
Latin  type.     There  is  nothing  of  the  kind  in  the  Mass. 


1 8  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Eulogius,  "be  continually  applied  to  your  eyes,  for  many 
miracles  have  been  wrought  by  this  same  gift."  A  Lombard 
tried  to  cut  open  the  golden  casket  containing  these  filings.  An 
evil  spirit  compelled  him  forthwith  to  cut  his  own  throat. 
When  the  Empress  Constantina  requested  him  to  send  the  head 
or  some  part  of  the  body  of  St.  Paul  to  deposit  in  a  church  she 
was  building,  Gregory  wrote  explaining  why  this  would  be 
impossible.  Even  to  approach  the  bodies  of  Saints  Peter  and 
Paul  was  to  cause  awful  prodigies.  His  predecessor,  Pelagius, 
had  tried  to  change  the  silver  covering  over  the  shrine  of  St. 
Peter,  and  was  deterred  by  a  most  alarming  portent.  When 
Gregory  tried  to  make  some  improvement  near  the  tomb  of 
St.  Paul  a  vision  appeared  to  the  custodian.  When  a  man 
touched  some  bones  near  it,  he  died  suddenly.  When  the  tomb 
of  St.  Lawrence  was  inadvertently  opened  all  those  who  saw 
his  body  died  within  ten  days.  A  cloth  laid  near  the  bodies  of 
the  saints  is  sufficient  to  deposit  in  a  church,  and  will  probably 
work  miracles.  In  the  time  of  Leo  the  Great,  the  Pope  cut  one 
of  these  cloths  and  blood  flowed.  All  stories  of  Greeks  having 
moved  the  bones  of  saints  from  Rome  must  therefore  be  in- 
credible. The  Empress  may  perhaps  obtain  some  filings  from 
the  chains  of  the  Apostle;  but  Gregory  can  promise  nothing. 
Sometimes  the  priest  can  get  a  speck  off*  by  the  application  of 
the  file,  but  often  the  chains  will  allow  nothing  to  be  taken 
from  them.  Of  course  politeness  compelled  Gregory  in  refusing 
an  Empress  to  exaggerate  the  wonder-working  power  of  the 
relics;  but  he  must  have  partly  believed  in  it  himself,  and  deaths 
following  contact  with  objects  so  feared  and  venerated  may 
doubtless  have  occurred. 

It  is  refreshing  to  turn  from  the  infirmities  of  so  noble  a 
mind  as  that  of  Gregory  to  the  qualities  really  demanding  ad- 
miration and  to  show  how  he  laid  the  foundation  of  the  great 
and  often  beneficial  influence  of  his  see. 

Gregory  has  no  hesitation  in  affirming  the  primacy  of  his 
see;  but  it  is  over  other  bishops  and  is  purely  spiritual;  if  he 
shows  independence  towards  the  secular  power  it  is  on  account 
of  its  incapacity.  The  most  glaring  example  of  this  was  the 


THE   PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  19 

incompetency  shown  by  the  Byzantines  in  dealing  with  Italy. 
Romanus  the  Exarch  could  do  nothing  to  hold  the  Lombards 
in  check,  and  the  provincials  were  not  able  either  to  fight  or  to 
negotiate  terms.  It  was  Gregory,  if  anyone,  who  saved  Rome 
from  capture  by  Agilulf,  King  of  the  Lombards  and  Ariulf, 
Duke  of  Spoleto.  Maurice,  the  Emperor,  was  not  unnaturally 
indignant  at  Gregory's  interference  and  his  negotiations;  and 
a  bitter  correspondence  ensued  in  595  between  him  and  the 
Roman  bishop.  In  his  letter  to  the  Emperor,  Gregory  up- 
braids Maurice  for  calling  him  a  fool,  though  he  had  certainly 
been  one  in  enduring  so  much  at  the  hands  of  the  Lombards. 
He  solemnly  protests  against  the  treatment  he  has  received, 
and  especially  at  the  imperial  displeasure  being  visited  upon 
those  who  had  defended  Rome,  namely,  Gregory  the  Praefect 
and  the  general  Castus.  It  was  Gregory  who  was  mainly  re- 
sponsible for  the  peace  made  between  the  Empire  and  the 
Lombards  in  598,  which  lasted  for  two  years.  In  the  whole 
business  the  Pope  is  alike  a  peacemaker  and  a  patriot,  the  real 
saviour  of  Italy. 

With  the  See  of  Constantinople  Gregory  had  even  more 
trouble  than  with  the  Emperor.  It  must  never  be  forgotten 
that  Constantinople  was  New  Rome,  the  Emperor,  the  Roman 
Emperor,  the  army,  the  Roman  army;  and  the  inhabitants 
called  themselves  Romans.  To  speak  of  the  Greek  Empire  is 
entirely  incorrect.  It  was  as  bishop  of  New  Rome  that  the 
Constantinopolitan  prelate  claimed,  so  far  as  he  dared  to  do 
so,  equality  with  the  Pope  himself.  Consequently  when  John 
the  Faster,  Bishop  of  Constantinople,  took  the  title  of 
Universal  Bishop,  it  was  naturally  regarded  as  an  insult  to 
Old  Rome. 

The  Church  of  Ravenna  was  also  a  cause  of  anxiety  on 
account  of  the  ambition  of  its  bishops,  who  did  not  forget 
that  their  city  was  the  seat  of  the  Roman  government.  It  turned 
on  the  use  of  the  pallium.  This  was  a  vestment  consisting  of  a 
long  band  of  white  wool  ornamented  with  a  varying  number  of 
black  or  purple  crosses.  In  the  East  it  is  an  episcopal  vestment, 
the  omophorion,  but  in  the  West  it  was  a  mark  of  honour, 


20  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

granted  only  to  the  most  distinguished  ecclesiastics.  It  seems 
to  have  been  customary  in  early  times  for  the  Pope  to  ask  leave 
of  the  Emperor  before  he  gave  a  pall.  It  was  worn  during  the 
first  part  of  the  Mass  up  to  the  reading  of  the  Gospel;  but  the 
Pope  and  the  Bishop  of  Ravenna  kept  it  on  all  the  service. 
The  Bishop  in  Gregory's  time  was  named  John,  formerly  a 
Roman  priest  and  a  friend  of  the  Pope.  However,  he  fell  into 
"the  sin  of  pride"  and  insisted  on  wearing  the  pallium  even 
when  he  gave  audience  to  the  laity.  The  dispute  continued 
even  after  his  death,  when  his  successor  Marstinianus,  a  friend 
and  disciple  of  Gregory,  was  unable  to  yield  to  the  Pope  on 
this  point.  Trifling  as  all  this  may  seem,  it  is  deserving  of  men- 
tion as  illustrating  the  spirit  of  the  age,  in  which  outward  sym- 
bols were  considered  of  vital  importance.  Gregory  was  not  the 
man  to  dispute  about  trifles;  but  in  the  question  of  the  wearing 
of  the  pallium  the  whole  principle  of  the  respective  rights  of 
Rome  and  Ravenna  was  involved. 

The  great  Pope  showed  his  interest  in  the  churches  of 
every  part  of  the  world  as  Patriarch  of  the  West,  and  as  chief 
among  the  Patriarchs  of  the  East.  But  Gregory  was  too  great 
a  man  to  desire  rigid  uniformity,  or  even  to  exact  unquestion- 
ing obedience.  The  See  of  Peter  has  the  right  to  correct  of- 
fenders, and  to  restrain  those  who  would  encroach  on  the  do- 
minion of  others;  but  "when  no  fault  requires  it  to  be  other- 
wise, all  bishops  according  to  the  principle  of  humility  are 
equal."  He  desires  "no  honour  which  shall  detract  from  the 
honour  which  belongs  to  my  brethren."  Toward  the  Eastern 
Patriarchates  he  takes  a  line  of  his  own.  Antioch  had  St.  Peter 
as  its  bishop  for  seven  years.  Alexandria  was  the  see  of  Mark, 
the  disciple  of  Peter.  Consequently  these  churches  are  Petrine 
and  derive  their  authority  from  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles. 
This  argument  was  of  course  a  convenient  weapon  to  use 
against  the  presumption  of  Constantinople. 

Gregory's  great  achievement,  the  conversion  of  the  English, 
is  an  important  episode  in  the  development  of  the  Papal 
theory.  Augustine  was  sent  forth  from  his  monastery  on  the 
Caelian  Hill,  as  a  general  might  have  been  sent  to  conquer  and 


THE   PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  2T 

organize  a  new  province.  The  island  is  to  be  duly  divided  into 
two  provinces  with  the  old  Roman  cities  of  London  and  York 
as  metropolitan  sees.  Augustine  is  to  have  jurisdiction  for  life 
and  after  him  the  senior  metropolitan  is  to  be  the  president. 
The  authority  of  Augustine  is  strictly  limited  to  Britain — he 
is  to  have  no  jurisdiction  in  Gaul — that  belongs  to  his  colleague 
Vigilius  of  Aries.  Augustine  is  to  choose  all  that  is  best  from 
the  rites  of  other  churches  for  the  newly  planted  church.  Such 
was  the  tenor  of  the  Responsa  brought  by  the  second  mission 
to  Augustine  with  Gregory's  letters  in  answer  to  the  report  of 
the  success  of  the  Gospel  in  Kent.  They  are  interesting  not 
merely  because  they  throw  light  on  the  conditions  of  the  time 
and  the  mind  of  Gregory,  but  from  the  tone  of  authority  which 
pervades  them.  The  Pope  issues  his  orders  from  the  centre  of 
Christendom  as  to  how  this  church  planted  on  its  outskirts  is 
to  be  organized,  as  an  Emperor  might  have  directed  his  lieu- 
tenant to  divide  and  administer  a  province  which  had  just  been 
annexed.  And  it  is  worthy  of  attention  how  the  Roman  spirit 
pervades  Gregory's  direction.  He  desires  as  little  change  as 
possible  provided  the  possession  of  what  has  been  acquired  is 
made  sure.  Even,  according  to  his  letters,  the  customs  of  the 
people  and  their  very  religious  festivals  are  to  be  as  little  al- 
tered as  possible  consistently  with  the  maintenance  of  pure 
Christianity.  The  new  church  was  also  thoroughly  medieval 
alike  in  the  papal  authority  with  which  it  was  established  and 
the  monastic  tone  by  which  it  was  pervaded.  It  was  from  the 
monasteries  of  Canterbury  that  the  light  of  truth  was  expected 
to  spread  throughout  the  island. 

What  has  been  written  hitherto  may  be  open  to  the  ob- 
jection that  Gregory  represents  a  pope  of  a  totally  exceptional 
type,  and  that  what  is  described  as  happening  under  him 
occurred  in  no  other  pontificate.  Of  course  this  criticism  is  in 
a  sense  valid,  nevertheless  it  is  impossible  that  all  should  have 
originated  with  him  and  have  collapsed  at  his  death.  The  fact 
is  whenever  an  opportunity  is  afforded  of  seeing  the  ancient 
papal  organization  at  work  the  same  sort  of  administration  is 
revealed.  Siricius,  in  the  fourth  century,  and  Leo,  in  the  fifth, 


22  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

transact  business  on  lines  somewhat  similar  to  those  of  Gregory 
in  the  sixth;  and  even  in  days  of  anarchy  and  confusion  the 
Roman  Church  never  lost  sight  of  the  Christianity  of  the  world. 
Gregory  inherited  and  transmitted  a  tradition  as  to  the  posi- 
tion and  duties  of  the  papal  chair  and  of  the  Church  of  Rome  in 
general,  and  it  will  be  abundantly  clear  that  no  amount  of 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  confusion  in  the  City  was  able  finally  to 
interrupt  it.  No  sooner  was  order  restored  than  the  authority 
of  Rome  revived  and  flourished  once  more.  For  no  individual, 
however  transcendent  his  gifts,  can  be  greater  than  an  institu- 
tion with  a  continuous  tradition.  And  the  Papacy  was  more 
powerful  than  any  of  the  few  popes  of  commanding  genius 
who  presided  over  it.  Leo  I,  Gregory  II,  Gregory  III,  Nicholas 
I,  Gregory  VII,  and  Innocent  III  left  their  marks  indelible  in 
history;  but  they  are  after  all  but  names  in  the  story  of  the 
great  priesthood,  which  claimed  and  still  claims  supremacy 
over  the  Christian  conscience  throughout  the  world.  In  the 
pontificate  of  Gregory  I  is  seen  the  system  working,  thanks  to 
his  sanctity  and  force  of  character,  under  unusually  favour- 
able conditions. 

The  Church  of  Rome  was  moreover  thoroughly  conversant 
with  the  art  of  presenting  the  Christian  religion  as  an  appeal 
to  men's  imagination.  Pope  Pelagius  died  of  the  plague  Feb. 
8th,  590,  and  the  people  with  one  voice  acclaimed  Gregory  the 
Deacon  as  fitted  for  the  papacy.  Yet  nothing  finally  could  be 
done  till  the  choice  of  the  Romans  had  been  confirmed  at  Con- 
stantinople. But  in  the  meantime  the  plague  raged  and  the 
people  dropped  dead,  till  Gregory  in  a  sermon  in  St.  John 
Lateran,  the  Cathedral  of  Rome,  announced  his  intention  of 
assembling  the  people  in  a  seven-fold  litany  to  entreat  the 
mercy  of  God.  The  order  of  the  procession  is  indicated  in  a 
statement  which  shows  the  seven  regions  and  the  seven-fold 
division  of  the  Roman  people,  "Let  the  clergy  set  out  from  the 
Church  of  SS.  Cosmas  and  Damian  with  the  priests  of  the 
First  region,"  etc.  Perhaps,  however,  the  arrangement  will  be 
clearer  in  the  form  of  a  table. 


THE   PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL   CHURCH  23 


DIVISION 

STARTING    PLACE                   REGION 

I. 

Clergy 

*SS.  Cosmas  and  Damian        Sixth 

2. 

Abbots  and  their  monks 

SS.  Gervasius  and  Protasius   Fourth 

3- 

Abbesses  and  nuns 

*SS.  Marcellinus  and  Peter     First 

4- 

Children 

*SS.  John  and  Paul                   Second 

5- 

Laymen 

*St.  Stephen,  the  ProtomartyrSeventh 

6. 

Widows 

St.  Euphemia                            Fifth 

7- 

Married  women 

*St.  Clement  the  Martyr         Third 

"Let  us  go  forth,"  says  Gregory,  "from  each  of  the  churches 
with  prayers  and  tears;  let  us  meet  together  at  the  Basilica  of 
the  Blessed  Mary,  Ever  Virgin,  Mother  of  Our  Lord  God  Jesus 
Christ;  and  let  us  there  persevere  in  supplications  to  the  Lord, 
with  weeping  and  groaning,  that  we  may  be  deemed  worthy  to 
receive  pardon  for  our  sins." 

It  is  easy  to  see  from  this  address  that  processions  in  Rome 
were  already  organized  and  imposing,  and  though  it  cannot  be 
proved  what  Gregory  did  for  the  ritual  observances  of  the 
Church,  it  is  evident  that  they  were  in  his  time  designed  to 
impress  not  only  the  Romans  but  those  who  visited  the  city. 
In  later  days  the  baptismal  office,  as  administered  by  the  Pope 
in  St.  John  Lateran,  must  have  been  a  spectacle  appealing  to 
the  religious  emotions  which  no  one  could  have  witnessed 
unmoved.  This  contributed  greatly  to  the  influence  of  the 
Roman  Church  and  to  the  authority  of  its  clergy,  notably  of 
its  Supreme  Pontiff". 

The  Great  Baptismal  ceremony  was,  however,  but  occa- 
sional, at  rare  intervals  throughout  the  Christian  year.  There 
was,  however,  one  service  which  every  Christian  witnessed 
constantly,  so  fraught  with  mystery,  so  solemn,  so  awful,  that 
it  is  not  too  much  to  assert  that  it  was  the  pivot  of  the  religion 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Founder  of  the  Church  had  on  the 
night  of  his  betrayal  instituted  a  feast  commemorative  of  his 
Death  and  had  called  the  Bread  His  Body,  and  the  Wine  His 
Blood.  From  the  dawn  of  Christianity,  the  Breaking  of  Bread, 
the  Eucharist,  or  as  it  was  later  termed  in  the  West  the  "Mass " 
became  the  central  act  of  worship.  At  first,  perhaps  a  supper  or 
common  meal,  it  soon  became  a  service  with  an  increasing 

*The  Saints  are  mentioned  in  the  Canon  of  the  Mass. 


24  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tendency  to  assume  a  certain  definite  form.  As  the  church  de- 
veloped, the  Liturgy,  for  so  the  service  was  termed,  grew  in  the 
impressive  manner  in  which  it  was  performed,  and  in  the 
splendour  of  its  ritual.  It  was  regarded  with  increasing  awe; 
for,  whereas  all  Christians  had  at  first  partaken  of  it  regularly, 
it  gradually  became  customary  only  to  do  so  on  rare  occasions, 
and  to  attend  without  communicating.  The  essentials  of  the 
primitive  service  seem  to  have  been  prayers,  the  reading  of 
scriptures  and  exhortation.  When  the  preliminary  exercises  were 
finished  the  deacon  called  on  all  who  were  undergoing  penance 
or  were  not  baptized  to  retire.  The  doors  were  then  closed  and 
the  fully  initiated  Christian  men  and  women  celebrated  the 
death  of  Christ  upon  the  Cross,  before  which  he  had  instituted 
the  Supper.  Bread  and  wine  were  solemnly  offered  by  the 
"president"  of  the  assembly  and  the  words  of  institution  were 
repeated.  Then  the  people  partook  of  the  Sacred  Elements  and 
the  service  was  at  an  end.  In  the  West  the  conclusion  was  the 
sentence  Ite  missa  est,  and  from  this  dismissal  of  the  congrega- 
tion is  probably  derived  the  term  missa  or  mass. 

The  great  prayer  of  Offering  —  in  Greek  the  Anaphora, 
offering  up — was  the  culmination  of  the  Eucharistic  ceremony; 
and  in  the  West  it  tended  to  become  the  same  everywhere  and 
to  follow  the  prayer  used  by  the  Roman  Church.  The  Mass 
varied  in  its  opening  details  in  every  country  of  the  West,  even 
in  many  dioceses,  but  the  Canon,  as  it  was  called  from  its  un- 
changing character,  became  exclusively  that  of  the  Roman 
Church.  And  yet  assuredly  it  is  not  the  most  ancient  form  in 
which  the  service  was  conducted,  even  in  Rome,  where  it  al- 
most certainly  was  said  in  Greek.  At  the  same  time  it  was  in 
the  days  of  Gregory  so  old  and  regarded  with  so  much  venera- 
tion that  it  is  wonderingly  recorded  that  this  great  Pope  made 
two  alterations  which  seem  truly  unimportant  but  were  yet 
regarded  as  of  great  significance: 

(i)  He  added  to  the  prayer  Hanc  igitur  the  words  "And  may- 
est  thou  dispose  our  ways  in  Thy  peace,  and  deliver  us 
from  eternal  damnation,  and  order  us  to  be  numbered  in 
the  flock  of  thine  elect." 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  25 

(2)  He  ordered  the  Lord's  Prayer  to  be  said  immediately  after 
the  Canon,  "Because  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Apostles 
to  say  this  very  prayer  alone  at  the  consecration  of  the 
Host;  and  it  seemed  to  me  very  incongruous  that  we  should 
say  over  the  Oblation  the  Canon  composed  by  a  scholastic 
and  not  say  over  His  Body  and  Blood  the  prayer  composed 
by  the  Redeemer  Himself." 

As  the  exact  words  of  the  Canon  of  the  Roman  Mass  are 
not  familiar  to  many,  a  translation  of  this  noble  prayer  is 
given  in  full  without  the  addition  of  the  rubrics  which  direct 
the  actions  of  the  ministering  priest,  though  these  are  regarded 
as  of  great  importance. 

CANON  OF  THE  MASS 

Therefore,  O  most  merciful  Father,  we  humbly  pray  thee,  through 
Jesus  Christ  thy  Son  our  Lord,  and  entreat  thee  to  accept  and  bless 
these  gifts,  these  presents,  these  holy  unspotted  sacrifices,  which  we 
offer  to  thee,  in  the  first  place,  on  behalf  of  the  holy  Catholic  Church, 
which  do  thou  vouchsafe  to  keep  in  peace,  to  guard,  to  unite,  and  to 
govern,  throughout  the  whole  world;  together  with  thy  servants  our 
Pope  N.  and  our  Bishop  N.  [and  our  King  N.]  and  all  who  are  ortho- 
dox, and  who  hold  the  catholic  and  apostolic  faith. 

Remember,  O  Lord,  thy  servants  and  thy  handmaidens  N.  and 
N.  and  all  here  present,  whose  faith  is  approved,  and  whose  devotion 
is  known  to  thee;  on  behalf  of  whom  we  offer  unto  thee  [or  who  offer 
unto  thee]  this  sacrifice  of  praise,  for  themselves  and  for  all  pertain- 
ing to  them,  for  the  redemption  of  their  souls,  for  the  hope  of  their 
own  salvation  and  security,  and  who  are  paying  their  vows  unto  thee, 
the  eternal,  living,  and  true  God. 

In  communion  with  and  reverencing  the  memory,  in  the  first 
place,  of  the  glorious  and  ever-virgin  Mary,  mother  of  our  God  and 
Lord  Jesus  Christ;  as  also  of  thy  blessed  apostles  and  martyrs — 
Peter,  Paul,  Andrew,  James,  John,  Thomas,  James,  Philip,  Bartholo- 
mew, Matthew,  Simon,  and  Thaddaeus,  Linus,  Cletus,  Clement, 
Sixtus,  Cornelius,  Cyprian,  Laurence,  Chrysogonus,  John  and  Paul, 
Cosmas  and  Damian,  and  of  all  thy  saints;  through  whose  merits  and 
prayers  do  thou  grant  that  in  all  things  we  may  be  defended  by  the 
aid  of  thy  protection.  Through  the  same  Christ  our  Lord.  Amen. 

We  beseech  thee,  therefore,  O  Lord,  graciously  to  accept  this  ob- 
lation of  our  services,  and  of  thy  whole  family,  and  to  dispose  our  days 
in  thy  peace,  bidding  us  to  be  delivered  from  eternal  damnation,  and 
to  be  numbered  among  the  flock  of  thine  elect.  Through  Christ  our 
Lord.  Amen. 

Which  oblation,  we  beseech  thee,  O  Almighty,  that  thou  wouldest 


26  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

vouchsafe  in  all  respects  to  bless,  approve,  ratify,  and  make  reason- 
able and  acceptable,  that  it  may  become  to  us  the  body  and  the  blood 
of  thy  most  dearly  beloved  Son  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Who  on  the  day  before  he  suffered  took  bread  into  his  holy  and 
adorable  hands,  and  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  heaven,  to  thee,  O  God, 
his  Almighty  Father,  gave  thanks  to  thee,  blessed  it,  brake  it,  And  gave 
it  to  his  disciples,  saving,  Take,  and  eat  ye  all  of  this.  For  this  is  My 
Body. 

Likewise,  after  supper,  taking  this  most  excellent  chalice  into 
his  holy  and  adorable  hands,  and  giving  thanks  to  thee,  he  blessed 
it,  and  gave  it  to  his  disciples,  saying,  Take  and  drink  ye  all  of  this, 
for  this  is  the  cup  of  My  Blood  of  the  new  and  everlasting  testament, 
the  mystery  of  faith,  which  shall  be  shed  for  you  and  for  many  for 
the  remission  of  sins. 

As  oft  as  ye  shall  do  these  things,  ye  shall  do  them  in  remembrance 
of  me. 

Wherefore  also,  O  Lord,  we  thy  servants,  together  with  thy  holy 
people,  calling  to  mind  both  the  blessed  passion  of  the  same  Christ, 
thy  Son,  our  Lord  God,  and  also  his  resurrection  from  the  dead,  to- 
gether with  his  glorious  ascension  into  heaven,  offer  to  thy  most  ex- 
cellent majesty  of  thy  gifts  and  bounties,  a  pure  offering,  a  holy 
offering,  a  spotless  offering,  the  holy  bread  of  eternal  life,  and  the 
chalice  of  everlasting  salvation.  Upon  which  do  thou  vouchsafe  to 
look  with  a  favourable  and  gracious  countenance,  and  to  accept 
them  as  thou  didst  vouchsafe  to  accept  the  gifts  of  thy  righteous 
servant  Abel,  the  sacrifice  of  our  patriarch  Abraham,  and  the  holy 
sacrifice,  the  pure  oblation,  which  thy  high  priest  Melchisedech  offered 
unto  thee. 

We  humbly  beseech  thee,  Almighty  God,  command  these  (gifts)  to 
be  borne  by  the  hands  of  thy  holy  angel  to  thy  Altar  on  High,  in 
the  presence  of  thy  divine  majesty,  that  as  many  of  us  as  shall  by 
partaking  at  this  Altar  receive  the  most  sacred  body  and  blood  of 
thy  Son,  may  be  fulfilled  with  all  heavenly  benediction  and  grace, 
through  the  same  Christ  our  Lord.  Amen. 

Remember  also,  O  Lord  (the  souls  of)  thy  servants  and  hand- 
maidens N.  and  N.,  who  have  gone  before  us  with  the  sign  of  faith, 
and  sleep  the  sleep  of  peace;  to  them,  O  Lord,  and  to  all  who  rest  in 
Christ,  we  pray  thee  that  thou  wouldest  grant  a  place  of  refreshment, 
light  and  peace.  Through  the  same  Christ  our  Lord.  Amen. 

To  us,  also,  thy  sinful  servants,  who  hope  in  the  multitude  of  thy 
mercies,  vouchsafe  to  grant  some  part  and  fellowship  with  thy  holy 
apostles  and  martyrs,  with  John,  Stephen,  Matthias,  Barnabas, 
Ignatius,  Alexander,  Marcellinus,  Peter,  Felicitas,  Perpetua,  Agatha, 
Lucy,  Agnes,  Caecilia,  Anastasia,  and  with  all  thy  Saints,  into 
whose  company  do  thou  admit  us,  wTe  beseech  thee,  not  weighing  our 
merits,  but  pardoning  our  offences.  Through  Christ  our  Lord. 

By  whom,  O  Lord,  thou  ever  createst,  sanctifiest,  quickenest, 
blessest,  and  bestowest  upon  us  all  these  good  things. 


THE   PILLARS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  27 

Through  him,  and  with  him,  and  in  him,  all  honour  and  glory 
are  unto  thee,  God  the  Father  Almighty,  in  the  unity  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  For  ever  and  ever.  Amen. 

To  this  Gregory  added : 

Let  us  pray.  Admonished  by  saving  precepts,  and  directed  by 
divine  institution,  we  are  bold  to  say, 

(The  Lord's  Prayer) 

AUTHORITIES 

The  authority  for  the  life  of  St.  Benedict  is  the  Vita  by  Gregory  the  Great 
written  about  594.  A  useful  summary  of  the  Rule  is  to  be  found  in  Mirbt  s 
Quellen,  p.  71.  The  critical  text  by  E.  Woelflin  (1895)  has  been  translated 
in  Thatcher  and  McNeal,  Source  Book  for  Medieval  History,  pp.  432-485. 
The  latest  English  translation  is  by  Hunter  Blair  (Fort  Augustus,  1906). 
Good  accounts  of  Benedict  are  to  be  found  in  Milman's  Latin  Christianity, 
Bk.  II,  Ch.  VI  and  in  Hodgkin's  Italy  and  her  Invaders,  Vol.  IV,  Ch.  XVI. 
See  also  Montalembert,  Monks  of  the  West  (E.  T.) ;  Grisar,  History  of  Rome 
and  the  Popes  (E.  T.),  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  18  ff. 

The  writings  of  Gregory  the  Great  are  in  Migne,  Pat  Lat.,  Vols.  75-79. 
Those  most  valuable  for  his  biography  are  his  Letters  in  fourteen  books  and 
the  Dialogues.  Selected  Epistles,  translated  by  J.  Barmby,  appeared  in  the 
Nicene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers,  second  series,  Vols.  XII  and  XIII;  the  old 
translation  of  the  Dialogues  was  reedited  by  E.  G.  Gardner  in  191 1.  The 
chief  contemporary  authorities  are  Gregory  of  Tours  (d.  circa  594)  and 
the  Liber  Pontificalis,  the  record  of  each  Pope.  The  official  Life  by  Paul  the 
Deacon  was  written  by  order  of  John  VIII  (872-882).  The  Lombard,  John 
the  Deacon,  wrote  the  short  Life  a  century  earlier,  as  did  also  Bede,  Hist. 
Ecclesiastica  Gentis  Anglorum,  Bk.  II. 

Milman,  History  of  Latin  Christianity,  Bk.  II,  Ch.  VII  and  Bk.  IV.  3; 
Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her  Invaders,Wo\.\,  Ch.  VII.  The  two  volumes  of  F.  Homes 
Dudden,  Gregory  the  Great,  His  Place  in  History  and  Thought,  are  most  ex- 
haustive as  is  also  Sir  H.  Howorth's  Gregory  the  Great. 

For  the  difficult  study  of  the  Roman  'Canon'  see  Duchesne,  Christian 
Worship,  Its  Origin  and  Evolution,  E.  T.,  pp.  176  ff.  Srawley,  Early  History 
of  the  Liturgy,  Ch.  VIII.  Most  important  is  the  Article  'Canon'  by  Adrian 
Fortescue,  Catholic  Encyc,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  255-267.  According  to  the  Liber 
Pontificalis  Gregory  added  to  the  prayer  Hanc  Igitur,  "And  mayest  thou 
dispose  our  days  in  thy  peace,  and  may  we  be  delivered  from  eternal  damna- 
tion, and  be  numbered  with  thy  flock."  John  the  Deacon  is  the  authority 
for  the  addition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  after  the  Canon.  See  F.  Homes  Dudden, 
op.  cit.,  p.  265. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    CHURCH    AND   THE    EMPIRE 

The  Popes  dependent  on  Constantinople  —  Importance  of  period  —  Honorius  I  — 
Mohammed  —  Divisions  in  Eastern  Church  —  Monophysitism  —  Constans  II  — 
Leo  the  Isaurian  —  Images  —  Hostility  to  Image  Worship  —  Iconoclasm — The 
Franks  —  Progress  of  the  Lombards  —  Arguments  for  the  Temporal  Power  —  The 
conversion  and  donation  of  Constantine  —  Donation  a  forgery  —  Rise  of  the 
Frankish  Kingdom — The  House  of  Arnulf — A  series  of  able  popes — Pippin 
crowned  —  End  of  the  Exarchate — Pope  Stephen  II  crosses  the  Alps  —  Letter 
from  St.  Peter  —  Charles  the  Great  —  Barbarism  in  Rome  —  Donation  of  Pippin 
confirmed  —  Hadrian  I  —  The  Papal  Court  —  Leo  III  attacked  in  Rome  — 
Charles  acts  as  judge  —  Leo  III  declares  his  innocence  —  Charles  crowned 
emperor  —  Unity  of  the  Empire  —  The  Papacy  and  the  Empire. 

The  Roman  Church  after  Gregory  the  Great's  death  sank 
back  into  humble  dependence  on  the  court  of  Constantinople, 
from  which  it  arose  as  the  founder  of  the  Empire  of  the  West. 
For  more  than  a  century  the  popes  were  nominees  of  the  Em- 
peror, or  of  the  Exarchs  of  Ravenna,  elected  it  is  true  by  the 
Romans,  but  having  to  obtain  the  imperial  permission  to  as- 
cend the  chair  of  Peter.  Twenty-four  popes  were  made  between 
A.D.  604  and  708,  some  occupying  the  see  but  a  few  months. 
Often  a  year  and  more  intervened  between  the  death  of  a  pope 
and  the  accession  of  his  successor.  Hardly  a  single  name  on  the 
list  arrests  our  attention,  and,  of  the  two  who  reigned  more 
than  a  very  few  years,  one  fell  into  suspicion  of  heresy,  and  the 
other  died  confessing  the  orthodox  faith  in  exile.  The  facts 
about  nearly  all  these  seventh  century  pontiffs  are  obscure 
and  as  a  rule  the  sole  authority  is  the  Liber  Pontificalis. 

Yet  if  the  history  is  obscure,  the  period  is  important.  It 
was  one  of  much  expansion  in  the  West,  where  the  prestige 
of  the  Roman  See  was  continually  on  the  increase.  One  is 
amazed  at  hearing  on  the  one  side  of  the  misery  and  squalor 
of  the  city,  and  on  the  other  of  the  splendour  of  the  new  churches 

which  were  rising  upon  every  side.  No  danger  of  travel  could 

28 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  29 

keep  pilgrims  from  the  shrine  of  St.  Peter,  and  no  calamities 
could  lower  the  respect  in  which  the  popes  continued  to  be 
held.  Slowly  but  surely  the  foundations  of  the  papal  supremacy 
in  the  West  were  being  laid.  In  the  East  suddenly,  when  the 
Christian  empire  of  Rome  was  enjoying  a  complete  triumph 
over  Zoroastrian  Persia,  a  storm  cloud  broke  in  Arabia,  which 
has  darkened  the  countries  then  subject  to  the  Caesars  ever 
since.  The  rise  of  Islam  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  its  terrific  inrush 
into  the  civilized  world,  its  repulse  in  the  West,  and  the  re- 
vival of  the  spirit  of  the  Eastern  Empire  to  stem  the  tide,  be- 
long to  the  period  covered  by  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries. 
Finally,  the  last  phases  of  the  Monophysite  question,  Mono- 
theletism  and  Iconoclasm,  precipitated  the  division  of  Chris- 
tendom. 

To  enumerate  the  popes  of  the  seventh  century  is  an  un- 
profitable task  and  only  the  more  prominent  deserve  even  a 
passing  attention.  The  memory  of  Gregory  immediately  after 
his  death  was  not  held  in  the  respect  which  one  might  expect.  In 
his  profuse  charity  he  was  considered  to  have  diminished  the  pat- 
rimony of  the  Church.  Only  the  miracle  of  a  vision  witnessed 
by  his  biographer,  the  deacon  Peter,  joined  to  the  unpopu- 
larity of  his  successor  Sabinian,  saved  his  reputation.  Of  the 
four  popes  during  the  next  nineteen  years  there  is  nothing 
noteworthy,  except  that  Boniface  III  obtained  from  Phocas 
an  acknowledgment  of  the  primacy  of  the  See  of  Rome, 
and  the  same  Emperor  granted  to  Boniface  IV  the  use  of  the 
famous  temple  of  the  Pantheon,  which  was  converted  into  a 
church  in  honour  of  the  Virgin  and  all  the  martyrs.  In  A.D. 
625  Honorius  was  made  pope  and  reigned  till  638,  a  munificent 
pontiff",  with  statesmanlike  ability,  but  unfortunate  in  leaving 
behind  him  a  reputation  of  doubtful  orthodoxy. 

Honorius  followed  up  the  work  of  Gregory  by  attending 
to  the  Christian  mission  to  the  Teutonic  races  of  Britain, 
sending  the  bishop  Birinus  to  the  West  Saxons,  the  most  pagan 
(paganissimos),  according  to  Bede,  of  all  the  tribes.  The  Pope 
can  hardly  have  realized  the  subsequent  importance  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  to  the  Papacy.  Nevertheless  he  deserves 


30  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  credit  of  promoting  their  conversion.  The  England,  which 
the  Church  called  to  a  sense  of  national  unity,  was  destined  to 
be  conspicuous  for  its  devotion  to  the  Roman  See.  Not  only 
did  the  island  show  its  filial  admiration  to  the  popes  by  zeal- 
ously adopting  Roman  culture  and  upholding  the  claims  of 
Peter  against  all  opposition  at  home,  and  sending  kings  and 
princes  to  the  holy  places  of  the  City;  it  also  poured  forth  a 
stream  of  missionaries  to  conquer  the  barbarians  of  northern 
Europe  for  the  Mother  Church.  Following  in  the  wake  of  the 
Irish  monks,  English  preachers  of  the  Gospel  were  to  be  found 
in  every  country,  and  in  every  instance  as  advocates  of  all  for 
which  the  Roman  Church  then  stood. 

Honorius  spared  no  expense  in  building  and  decorating 
churches,  thereby  rendering  Rome  attractive  to  visitors  from 
all  parts  of  the  world.  Evidently  conditions  were  improving  in 
his  days  and  Rome  was  enjoying  a  season  of  comparative 
prosperity.  This  Pope  covered  the  central  door  leading  to  the 
basilica  of  St.  Peter's  with  plates  of  silver  nine  hundred  and 
seventy  pounds  in  weight,  and  placed  two  great  candelabra 
before  the  shrine.  He  also  built  and  restored  many  churches, 
notably  that  of  St.  Adriana,  martyr  of  Nicomedia,  into  which, 
according  to  Gregorovius,  he  converted  the  ancient  Boule  or 
Senate  House.  In  a  poem  in  his  honour  Honorius  is  called  the 
good  bishop,  the  duke  of  the  people  {bonus  Antistes,  Dux 
plebis) . 

But  in  the  days  in  which  Honorius  was  building  and  re- 
pairing churches  in  Rome  the  world  was  being  threatened 
with  a  catastrophe,  rumours  of  which,  probably,  only  reached 
the  city.  Mohammed  fled  from  Mecca  to  Medina  in  A.D.  622, 
three  years  before  the  accession  of  Honorius  as  Pope;  and 
before  his  death,  Omar  had  taken  Damascus  and  Jerusalem. 
By  A.D.  650  Persia,  the  one  civilized  power  in  the  world, 
except  Rome,  was  overrun;  Egypt,  the  peculiar  province  of 
the  Emperor  since  the  days  of  Augustus,  became  the  property 
of  the  successors  of  Mohammed.  It  seemed  as  though  the  new 
faith  would  overwhelm  the  Christian  world. 

The  surprising  thing  was  the  feebleness  of  the  resistance 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  3 1 

of  the  Christians,  many  of  whom  surrendered  without  striking 
a  blow.  True  the  provincials  were  disarmed;  but  the  Roman 
armies  had  been  uniformly  successful  under  Heraclius,  the 
Emperor  who  had  conquered  Persia;  and  in  former  days  many 
cities  on  the  Eastern  frontier  had  put  up  a  brave  defence 
against  invasion.  But  no  enthusiasm  for  the  Empire  was 
shown  when  the  armies  of  Islam  appeared,  and  apparently 
little  for  the  Christian  cause.  Egypt  and  Syria  were  irrevocably 
lost  almost  without  a  decisive  battle. 

An  explanation  may  be  found  in  the  religious  condition  of 
the  Roman  world.  The  condemnation  of  Nestorius  had  alien- 
ated a  vast  body  of  Christians  and  forced  them  to  take  refuge 
outside  the  Empire.  The  Council  of  Chalcedon  (A.D.  451) 
which  condemned  Eutyches  had  alienated  Egypt.  The  problem 
of  maintaining  the  union  of  the  Empire  was  a  religious  one, 
and  the  government  of  Constantinople  found  a  formidable 
obstacle  in  the  Chalcedonian  definition,  which  had  attempted 
to  settle  once  and  for  all  the  relation  of  the  Godhead  and  the 
Manhood  in  the  Person  of  Christ.  The  Early  Church  was  for  a 
long  time  content  with  insisting  on  the  reality  of  the  human 
body  of  the  Lord,  without  entering  into  the  difficult  question 
of  the  relation  of  the  divine  and  human  natures  in  His  Person. 
When  the  controversy  became  acute  in  the  fifth  century  the 
orthodox  doctrine  was  settled  by  a  compromise  between  two 
divergent  views.  The  Eastern  Church,  and  especially  Alex- 
andria, adhered  to  the  teaching  that  our  Lord  was  entirely 
divine  with  a  human  body,  the  Western  fathers  agreed  with 
those  of  Antioch  in  maintaining  that  in  Christ  there  were  two 
natures,  a  human  and  a  divine.  Both  views,  if  logically  carried 
to  a  conclusion,  produced  a  heresy;  the  Alexandrian  was  in 
danger  of  denying  that  Christ  had  any  real  manhood  at  all; 
the  Antiochene  of  maintaining  that  in  Christ  there  were  two 
distinct  personalities,  Man  and  God.  Hence  arose  two  opposite 
heresies,  that  of  Eutyches,  which  was  condemned  in  A.D.  451 
by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  and  that  of  Nestorius,  which  had 
previously  been  repudiated  by  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  A.D. 
431.  The  Council  of  Chalcedon  had  been  guided  in  this  very 


32  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

technical  controversy  by  an  explanation  of  the  difficulty  by 
Pope  Leo  the  Great,  in  a  document  known  as  the  Tome,  which 
showed  that  the  human  and  divine  natures  co-existed  in  our 
Lord's  single  Person,  and  that  he  manifested  each  on  different 
occasions.  For  example,  "He  suffered  as  Man,  and  rose  from 
the  dead  as  God."  The  Popes  regarded  Leo's  "settlement  as  a 
great  achievement  and  fiercely  resented  any  attempt  to  set  it 
aside.  The  Eastern  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  were  only 
partially  satisfied  and  demanded  a  fuller  explanation  of  the 
mystery.  The  Alexandrians,  moreover,  regarded  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Chalcedon  which  condemned  their  bishop  Diosco- 
rus  as  an  insult  to  St.  Cyril,  their  most  honoured  bishop  who 
had  been  the  means  of  bringing  about  the  refutation  of  Nes- 
torius.  Thus  from  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  the  East 
had  been  profoundly  divided  on  this  abstruse  question. 

To  understand  the  importance  of  this  it  must  always  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  Byzantine  system  was  already  begin- 
ning to  be  entirely  bound  up  with  orthodoxy.  Already  the 
Emperor  was  the  consecrated  divine  representative  of  the  true 
Faith  of  the  Church,  and  the  function  of  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople was  to  see  that  he  never  deviated  a  hair's  breadth 
from  it.  The  consequence  was  that  until  the  dogma  could  be 
absolutely  and  finally  settled  there  could  be  no  unity.  The 
great  obstacle  was  the  Chalcedonian  formula,  and,  above  all, 
the  Tome  of  Leo.  The  price  the  Egyptians  and  Syrians  de- 
manded before  entering  into  full  communion  with  Constanti- 
nople was  that  these  should  be  modified.  This  was  recognized 
in  A.D.  478  by  the  Emperor  Zeno  and  the  patriarch  Acacius, 
who  put  forward  the  Henoticon  or  "Scheme  of  Union."  It  was 
the  clue  to  the  policy  of  Justinian  who  forced  Pope  Vigilius 
to  agree  to  the  condemnation  of  the  Three  Chapters,  extracts 
from  the  works  of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  Theodoret  of  Cyr- 
rhus,  and  Ibas  of  Edessa,  at  the  Fifth  Council  in  A.D.  553. 
And  now  that  the  Moslem  power  was  threatening  the  Christian 
world,  and  the  perverse  nationalism  of  the  Coptic  church  of 
Alexandria  was  drawing  them  away  from  what  they  called 
the  Melchites  (or  royal  party)  of  Constantinople,  the  Emperor 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  33 

Heraclius  suggested  with  the  concurrence  of  his  Patriarch 
Sergius  a  further  compromise.  They  proposed  that  the  Mono- 
physite  controversy  should  be  laid  forever  to  rest  by  a  confession 
that  whilst  Christ  had  two  natures,  the  human  and  the  divine, 
he  had  but  one  drastic  energy,  or  to  put  it  into  plainer  words, 
One  Will;  hence  the  name  Monothelite  was  given  to  the 
controversy  which  ensued;  and  the  document  which  made  the 
suggestion  was  called  the  Ecthesis. 

In  every  instance  the  Monophysites  were  partially  appeased 
by  the  concessions  offered,  and  the  peace  of  the  East  might  have 
been  assured  for  the  opposition  of  the  Roman  See  and  its  par- 
tisans in  Constantinople.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  Em- 
peror never  issued  any  proposal  without  the  consent  of  the 
Patriarch,  and  generally  at  his  suggestion. 

Whenever  the  Empire  was  strong  the  Papacy  was  forced  to 
submit,  notably  by  Justinian,  who  had  dragged  Pope  Vigilius 
to  Constantinople,  and,  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  the  Western 
Church,  compelled  him  to  assent  to  the  condemnation  of  the 
Three  Chapters.  Indeed  half  a  century  later  Gregory  the 
Great  had  difficulty  in  settling  a  schism  in  Istria  caused  by  the 
disgust  of  the  Church  there  at  the  weak  compliance  of  Vigilius. 
The  proposal  of  Heraclius  aroused  no  opposition  at  first;  and 
Pope  Honorius  accepted  the  compromise  of  Monothelitism, 
perhaps  from  liberality,  or  loyalty  to  the  wishes  of  the  Emperor, 
probably  because  he  did  not  clearly  comprehend  the  issue. 
But  the  Papacy  did  not  long  hesitate  which  side  to  take;  and  by 
A.D.  642  Theodorus  II  had  excommunicated  Pyrrhus  the 
Patriarch,  the  Pope  using  ink  into  which  he  placed  a  drop  of 
the  Blood  of  Christ  consecrated  in  the  Eucharist,  to  sign  the 
document. 

Constans  II,  who  soon  succeeded  Heraclius,  was  a  man  of 
enterprise  and  vigour  who  maintained  the  Empire  in  times  of 
unusual  difficulty.  He  left  an  evil  reputation,  partly  because 
of  his  stern  and  unamiable  character,  but  mainly  due  to  the 
stigma  of  unorthodoxy.  Extremely  unpopular  with  his  subjects 
at  Constantinople,  who  believed  him  to  be  the  murderer  of 
his  brother,  Constans  was  to  be  found  in  all  parts  of  his  do- 


34  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

minions;  and  was  the  last  of  the  Byzantine  emperors  to  visit 
Rome,  which  he  despoiled  of  many  of  its  remaining  objects  of 
value.  He  was  specially  detested  for  his  severe  treatment  of 
Pope  Martin  I,  whom  he  summoned  to  Constantinople  and 
finally  exiled  to  Cherson,  where  he  died  a  martyr  for  his  zeal 
for  orthodoxy  in  A.D.  655.  The  Pope  had  formally  condemned 
not  only  the  Ecthesis  of  Heraclius  but  also  the  Type  of  Constans, 
a  later  document  more  impartially  worded  than  the  Ecthesis, 
commanding  all  dispute  about  the  Two  Wills  to  cease. 

The  exile  and  death  of  Martin  revealed  to  the  popes  their 
impotence  to  withstand  the  court  of  Constantinople,  and  even 
after  the  death  of  Constans,  when  his  son  Constantine  Pogo- 
natus  (the  Bearded)  pronounced  in  favour  of  orthodoxy  and 
allowed  Monothelitism  to  be  condemned  by  the  Sixth  General 
Council  of  A.D.  680,  the  Papacy  had  still  to  feel  its  dependence. 
Ten  years  later  the  Council  "in  Trullo"  (A.D.  690)  ordained, 
with  complete  disregard  to  the  wishes  of  Rome,  its  famous 
canons,  which  have  since  governed  the  Greek  Church. 

This  period  was  marked  by  the  steady  decay  of  the  Roman 
Empire  in  Italy.  The  popes  are  mere  names,  many  were  Greeks 
or  Syrians,  but  all  seem  to  have  maintained  the  dignity  of  the 
Roman  See  to  the  best  of  their  power.  One,  Constantine 
(708-715),  visited  Constantinople  and  was  treated  with  due 
honour.  He  was  succeeded  by  Gregory  II;  and  shortly  after- 
wards Leo,  the  Isaurian,  ascended  the  imperial  throne.  Rome 
was  now  destined  to  enjoy  a  series  of  great  Popes,  and  Constanti- 
nople one  of  able  and  energetic  Emperors. 

It  is  not  easy  to  realize  how  nearly  Christian  civilization 
was  to  perishing  in  both  East  and  West  between  A.D.  717  and 
732,  but  neither  Leo,  the  deliverer  of  Constantinople,  nor 
Charles  Martel,  the  saviour  of  Gaul,  have  won  a  place  among 
the  champions  of  the  Cross,  one  being  tainted  with  heresy, 
and  the  other  with  laying  unholy  hands  on  the  property  of  the 
Church.  The  phenomenal  success  of  Islam  for  a  time  paralyzed 
Christendom,  which,  however,  recovered  and  long  fought  the 
new  fanaticism  on  equal  terms.  Within  fifty  years  of  Mo- 
hammed's flight  to  Medina  the  armies  of  the  Crescent  threat- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  35 

ened  Constantinople  and  the  Caliph  Moawiya  was  only  re- 
pulsed by  the  newly  invented  Greek  fire.  A  generation  later 
Leo  the  Isaurian  again  delivered  the  city  after  a  long  siege  by 
Moslemah.  Africa  and  Spain  had  already  fallen  under  the 
Muslim  yoke;  and  in  A.D.  732  Charles  Martel  only  just  stayed 
the  tide  at  the  decisive  battle  of  Tours.  With  Leo's  victory 
over  Moslemah  a  new  spirit  seemed  to  animate  Byzantium. 
The  emperors  were  for  generations  men  of  ability,  the  people 
were  ruled  under  just  and  impartial  laws,  the  finances  were  well 
administered  and  the  Roman  army  (for  so  it  was  called)  re- 
verted to  its  best  traditions  and  not  only  held  the  infidel  at 
bay,  but  drove  him  to  acknowledge  its  superiority.  Good  as 
were  the  armies  of  the  Caliphs  in  the  eighth  and  following  cen- 
turies, that  of  the  Caesars  of  Byzantium  was  confessedly  the 
best  in  the  world. 

But  the  victorious  armies  of  Leo  fell  under  the  influence 
of  their  enemies,  Mohammedan  and  Jewish,  and  winced  under 
the  taunt  that  they  were  idolaters.  For  generations  images  or 
pictures  which  the  early  Christian  had  regarded  with  horror 
had  multiplied  in  the  churches  and  were  looked  upon  with 
superstitious  reverence  and  even  worshipped  almost  as  separate 
deities.  Ten  years  after  his  succession  Leo  and  his  soldiers 
sought  to  remove  the  reproach  and  to  return  to  the  practice 
of  the  primitive  faith. 

The  Christian  Church  had  never  shared  in  the  Jewish 
horror  of  the  representation  in  Art  of  holy  things  or  even  of 
the  holiest  Persons.  From  the  earliest  day  of  the  Catacombs, 
the  Roman  Christians  decorated  the  resting  places  of  their 
dead  with  figures,  borrowed  from  the  conventional  art  of  the 
time,  yet  given  a  graceful  symbolism  of  their  own.  The  Apollo 
Kriophorus  became  Christ  bearing  home  the  lost  sheep;  salva- 
tion by  baptism  was  typified  by  the  Ark  and  Jonah  in  pictures, 
borrowed,  it  may  be,  from  representations  of  heathen  origin; 
the  fish  recalled  the  name  of  Jesus,  as  Christ,  Son  of  God  and 
Saviour.  Nay,  amid  the  flowers  and  fruit  with  which  the  walls 
were  decorated  there  were  to  be  seen  children  sporting  (amo- 
retti),  the  little  cupids  of  the  art  of  the  day.  In  process  of  time, 


36  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

with  the  honour  of  the  martyrs,  the  visible  tokens  of  their 
existence  in  the  form  of  relics  were  treasured  by  the  faithful, 
and  after  the  discovery  of  the  Holy  Places  men  were  reminded 
constantly  of  the  reality  of  the  events  which  had  brought  sal- 
vation to  the  world.  As  pagans  crowded  into  the  Church  efforts 
were  made  to  instruct  the  converts,  many  unable  to  read,  in 
Christian  verities  by  pictures,  and  a  distinctly  Christian  art 
developed.  The  saints,  the  blessed  Virgin,  our  Lord  in  human 
form,  even  God  himself,  began  to  be  represented  so  as  to  ap- 
peal to  human  eyes.  Together  with  relics  and  holy  places  these 
pictures  were  regarded  with  superstitious  awe  and  were  adored 
with  a  devotion  hardly  distinguishable  from  that  paid  to  the 
Godhead.  It  may  even  be  said  that,  to  the  ignorant,  visible 
objects  were  taking  the  place  of  Him,  whom  philosophy  was 
constantly  withdrawing  more   and   more   from   the    range  of 
human  understanding.   A  Christian  art  was  developing;  but 
art,  as  such,  was  not  producing  superstitious  reverence  for 
the  objects  perceived.  As  with  a  child  who  devotes  herself  to 
some  battered  doll  to  the  neglect  of  the  costliest  product  of 
the  toy  shop,  so  the  ignorant,  whether  pagan  or  Christian, 
worships  not  the  supreme  efforts  of  Phidias  or  Raphael,  but 
some  shapeless  idol,  some  smoke-begrimed  picture  as  inherent 
with  peculiar  sanctity,  powerful  to  work  miracles  and  to  answer 

prayer. 

The  Roman  army,  stung  by  the  taunts  of  their  Moham- 
medan enemies,  and  composed  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  great  cities  and  the  denizens  of  the  innumerable 
monasteries,  must  have  felt  the  reproach  that  they  were 
idolaters  acutely.  The  soldier  seems  to  have  been  animated  by 
a  species  of  Protestantism,  for  it  is  remarkable  that  all  the 
Iconoclast  emperors  were  successful  warriors,  a  fact  not  de- 
nied by  their  bitterest  opponents.  In  addition  to  this  there 
was  still  the  shadow  of  the  Monophysite  controversy.  Image 
worship  was  specially  distasteful  to  the  upholders  of  one 
nature  of  Christ.  According  to  the  theology  of  Cyril,  and  in- 
deed all  the  orthodox,  the  Word  assumed  not  the  nature  of 
an  individual,  but  human  nature.  He  did  not  become  a  man  but 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  37 

took  upon  himself  Manhood.  Consequently  he  could  not  be 
circumscribed  in  personality;  and  the  Monophysite  declared 
it  heresy  to  represent  him  as  a  man.  To  portray  Christ  was 
therefore  a  corruption  of  the  Faith.  It  appears,  moreover,  that 
the  cultus  of  the  Virgin  and  saints  had  developed  very  rapidly 
since  the  severance  of  the  Monophysites  from  the  Church. 
Even  the  reverence  for  the  Virgin  was  comparatively  recent. 
There  is  little  trace  of  it  in  the  Gospels  or  in  the  writings  of 
the  earlier  fathers;  and  in  the  Nestorian  and  Eutychian 
controversies  of  the  fifth  century,  the  chief  argument  against 
the  refusal  to  apply  to  her  the  favourite  title  Theotokos  was, 
not  that  to  withhold  it  was  an  insult  to  her,  but  that  it  was 
a  denial  of  the  true  Incarnation  of  the  Word.  To  abolish  the 
adoration  of  the  holy  images  and  all  that  it  connoted  was  not 
merely  to  remove  the  reproach  of  idolatry  from  Christianity, 
but  also  to  take  a  step  towards  the  reconciliation  of  the  Mono- 
physites to  the  Orthodox  Church,  and  therefore  to  raise  up  a 
formidable  Christian  people  enthusiastic  for  Church  and  Em- 
pire in  the  heart  of  Islam.  These  then  were  some  of  the  causes 
of  the  policy  of  Leo  the  Isaurian,  when  he  put  forward  the 
edict  against  the  worship  of  images  or  pictures  (called  indiffer- 
ently icons). 

However  laudable  the  motives  of  Leo  may  have  been,  the 
attempt  to  put  down  the  practice  of  adoring  the  sacred  images 
was  certain  to  arouse  a  storm.  Furious  controversies,  result- 
ing in  bloodshed,  had  been  provoked  by  difference  of  language, 
often  too  technical  to  be  intelligible  save  to  professed  theo- 
logians. But  the  destruction  of  images  and  pictures  appealed 
to  the  common  people.  Every  monk  who  found  a  picture  in 
his  cell  a  stimulus  to  devotion;  every  priest  who  tried  to  im- 
press on  his  flock  a  scriptural  truth,  or  as  was  more  probable, 
the  merits  of  a  local  saint;  every  invalid  who  looked  for  help 
from  a  wonder-working  picture;  every  devout  woman,  who 
relied  for  protection  on  the  portrait  of  her  favourite  saint, — 
all  inevitably  united  to  resist  the  decrees.  But  when  the 
imperial  order  reached  the  West,  where  there  were  no  Mono- 
physites, and  the  danger  from  Islam  was  less  pressing,  and 


38  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

when  even  the  sacred  and  venerable  image  of  St.  Peter  was  in 
danger  of  being  removed  from  Rome,  the  people  rose  in  frenzy 
against  the  Emperor,  especially  as  it  was  becoming  increas- 
ingly evident  that  there  was  no  help  to  be  looked  for  against 
the  Lombards.  Gregory  II,  whose  pontificate  of  fifteen  years 
was  not  unworthy  of  his  more  famous  namesake,  persisted  in 
urging  loyalty  to  the  Emperor,  but  at  the  same  time  was  vig- 
orous in  his  protests  against  the  impiety  of  Leo.  In  a  letter  of 
amazing  ignorance,  at  any  rate  of  Scripture,  the  Pope  is  cred- 
ited with  defying  Leo,  comparing  him  to  the  impious  Uzziah 
who  was  punished  for  destroying  the  Brazen  Serpent!  The 
letter  is,  however,  of  doubtful  genuineness,  nor  is  it  easy  to 
credit  it  as  emanating  from  such  a  Pope  as  Gregory  II.  In 
another  letter  the  Pope  lays  down  a  doctrine  of  separation  of 
the  functions  of  Church  and  State,  which  must  have  sounded 
strange  to  the  court  of  Byzantium,  and  to  the  Emperor  who  had 
declared  himself  Emperor  and  Bishop.  The  impending  sever- 
ance between  Eastern  and  Western  ideals  is  seen  in  Gregory's 
repudiation  of  the  Caesaro-papalism  of  Leo,  by  maintaining 
that  the  priesthood  was  independent  of  the  secular  Christian 
ruler,  although  this  had  centuries  before  been  the  attitude  of 
Ambrose  in  Italy,  and  his  contemporary  Martin  in  Gaul. 

Leo  had  arrayed  against  him  the  most  powerful  religious 
elements  in  the  world,  the  Roman  Church,  the  monks,  the 
women,  and  all  the  ignorant  and  superstitious.  But  he  was  not 
a  man  to  be  daunted;  and  his  son,  Constantine,  surnamed 
Copronymus  —  a  disgusting  name  taken  from  a  filthy  story 
of  his  baptism  as  an  infant — was  more  determined,  and  in 
A.D.  754,  supported  by  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  he 
held  a  council  which  entirely  forbade  the  use  of  images  in 
worship.  Martyrs  were  not  wanting  to  attest  their  faith  in 
the  sacred  icons. 

Just  when  the  relations  between  Papacy  were  most  strained, 
it  became  evident  that  the  Popes  must  seek  a  more  efficient 
ally  than  the  Caesar  at  Byzantium.  They  found  one  in  a  new 
Frankish  dynasty,  which  they,  or  their  faithful  friend  and 
missionary,  St.  Boniface,  were  active  in  promoting.  The  step 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  39 

was  rendered  necessary  by  the  rapid  success  of  the  Lombards 
in  Italy,  and  also  by  the  confiscation  of  the  papal  estates  in 
Sicily  by  Leo  as  a  punishment  for  Gregory  IPs  obstinacy  about 
the  images.  This  was  a  most  important  step  towards  the  See 
of  Rome  becoming  a  sovereign  state.  In  the  whole  course  of 
the  relations  between  the  Roman  Church  and  the  Byzantine 
Emperors  the  status  of  the  Pope  was  always  that  of  a  subject, 
who  could  be  treated  exactly  like  the  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, be  deposed,  or,  if  necessary,  be  haled  to  the  court,  as 
was  Martin  I,  to  answer  for  the  contumacy,  or  be  deprived  of 
his  estates  like  any  other  disobedient  subject.  But  if  the 
Patriarch  was  made  to  feel  his  dependence  on  the  Emperor, 
he  was  at  least  protected  by  the  government  and  maintained 
in  opulence  and  splendour,  whereas  the  Pope  had  to  do  the  best 
he  could  to  defend  himself  against  the  aggressions  of  the 
enemies  of  Rome  and  to  maintain  his  position  without  any 
assistance.  Under  such  circumstances  a  position  of  dependency 
was  intolerable,  and  the  Papacy  had  to  seek  aid  elsewhere. 
Amid  these  difficulties  the  Temporal  Power  originated,  and 
the  theories  connected  with  it  took  an  abiding  hold  on  all 
future  Popes.  From  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  to  the 
present  time  the  object  of  the  Roman  church  has  been  to 
secure  independence  of  any  secular  control  in  Italy,  and  to  be 
supported  by  some  strong  power  outside  the  limits  of  the 
peninsula. 

The  Lombards  appeared  to  be  on  the  high  road  towards  the 
establishment  of  a  solidly  united  kingdom  of  Italy.  All  that  stood 
in  their  way  were  Ravenna  and  Rome.  With  the  capture  of 
these  cities  their  hegemony  was  secure.  It  was  no  longer,  as 
it  had  been  in  the  days  of  Gregory  the  Great,  that  Rome  was 
threatened  by  barbarian  hordes  of  heretics.  The  Lombards 
had  now  been  settled  for  many  generations  in  Italy  and  had 
become  devout  sons  of  the  Church.  During  the  thirty-two  years' 
reign  of  their  great  king  Liutprand,  the  fatal  effects  of  their 
reverence  for  the  Roman  see  became  increasingly  apparent. 
Though  he  advanced  to  the  very  gates  of  the  City,  he  shrank 
before  the  majestic  presence  of  Gregory  II  and  actually  "re- 


40  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

stored"  to  the  Pope  the  cities  he  had  taken  from  the  Empire. 
The  word  "restored"  is  full  of  significance,  because  it  implied 
a  new  claim  on  the  part  of  the  Popes,  who,  when  they  lost 
their  vast  estates  in  Sicily,  began  to  demand  the  imperial 
territories  in  Italy.  Already  therefore  the  way  was  being 
prepared  for  the  foundation  of  the  States  of  the  Church  and 
the  Temporal  Power. 

The  acquisition  of  territory  by  the  Papacy  began  when 
Liutprand  presented  Gregory  II  with  Sutri,  which  he  had 
taken  from  the  Empire,  and  the  Roman  records  describe  the 
gift  as  "a  restitution"  (restituit).  Further  donations  of  territory 
were  made  by  this  generous  monarch,  and  were  augmented  by 
the  liberality  of  the  Emperors.  The  more  evident  it  became 
that  the  Byzantine  government  was  unable  to  hold  its  Italian 
provinces,  and  that  these  were  in  danger  of  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  Lombards,  the  stronger  grew  the  conviction  that 
the  legitimate  heirship  to  the  remaining  fragments  of  the 
Roman  dominion  in  Italy  belonged  to  the  See  of  Rome.  Hence 
the  insistence  of  the  Popes  that  whatever  they  acquired  from 
the  Lombards  was,  not  a  benefaction,  but  a  restitution,  and 
in  the  negotiations  between  the  Papacy  and  their  kings  the 
words  "restituere  propria  propriis"  occur. 

But  though  compelled  by  the  stern  logic  of  facts  to  lay 
claim  to  a  temporal  dominion  in  Italy  in  order  to  secure  their 
position,  the  Popes  were  desirous  of  producing  documentary 
evidence  to  show  that  they  were  entitled  to  it  as  well  as  to 
the  large  spiritual  prerogatives  which  they  desired  for  them- 
selves. The  story  of  the  means  employed  is  historically  im- 
portant as  revealing  the  beliefs  of  the  age,  and  the  anxiety  of 
the  Papacy  for  a  legal  status. 

Around  the  name  of  Constantine,  the  first  Christian  Em- 
peror, there  grew  a  vast  mass  of  legendary  matter  connected 
with  his  relation  to  the  church  of  Rome,  notably  the  story  of 
his  conversion  and  baptism  by  Pope  Sylvester  and  his  do- 
nation of  jurisdiction  over  the  Western  world  to  the  same  Pope. 
The  conversion  legend  is  the  earlier  by  centuries  and  takes 
form  in  a  variety  of  different  versions,  all  abounding  in  ana- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  41 

chronisms  and  filled  with  improbabilities.  It  first  appears  in  a 
sermon  by  James,  Monophysite  bishop  of  Sarug  in  Mesopo- 
tamia, preached  about  A.D.  473,  together  with  the  story  of 
Constantine's  leprosy  as  a  cure,  for  which  a  bath  in  the  blood 
of  infants  was  prescribed.  The  Emperor  was  induced  by  his 
servants  to  try  the  effect  of  baptism.  Accordingly  the  bishop 
(not  named)  anointed  Constantine,  and  thereby  cured  him  of 
his  leprosy;  but  a  fire  burned  over  the  water  so  that  he  could  not 
enter  till  he  had  put  ofFhis  royal  crown.  In  Armenia  the  legend 
seems  to  have  been  affected  by  the  similar  story  about  the 
conversion  of  Tiridates  by  Gregory  the  Illuminator.  Here, 
however,  the  name  of  Sylvester  appears;  and  Constantine  is 
said  to  have  felt  compunction  owing  to  the  lamentation  of 
the  mothers  whose  children  he  had  proposed  to  slay  for  his 
bath  in  blood.  By  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  the  legend 
appears  to  have  reached  Rome,  and  to  have  been  incorporated 
in  the  traditions  of  the  Church. 

To  this  was  subsequently  attached  the  famous  Donation, 
which  is  a  fictitious  legal  document  incorporated  with  the 
fanciful  legend  of  the  Conversion.  It  probably  belongs  to  the 
eighth  century  and  was  received  as  gospel  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  both  by  the  defenders  and  by  the  opponents  of 
the  papal  autocracy.  Its  importance  is  not  to  be  measured 
by  its  lack  of  genuineness,  for  few  true  tales  have  exercised  so 
potent  an  influence  on  subsequent  history. 

Constantine  addresses  Sylvester,  all  bishops  of  the  church, 
and  the  clergy  of  Rome.  He  describes  himself  as  the  conqueror 
of  the  Alemanni,  Goths,  Germans,  Britons,  and  even  of  the 
Huns  who  had  not  in  his  time  made  their  appearance  in  Europe. 
The  Emperor  proceeds  to  declare  the  faith  he  had  received 
from  the  Pope  at  his  baptism  in  which  the  controversies  of 
the  fifth  century  are  carefully  anticipated  in  words  remi- 
niscent of  Leo's  famous  Tome  of  A.D.  449.  Next  Constantine 
relates  how  the  tears  of  their  mothers  induced  him  to  abandon 
trying  to  bathe  in  the  blood  of  children  as  a  cure  for  leprosy; 
and  that  Peter  and  Paul  had  appeared  to  him  by  night,  and 
had  told  him  to  fetch  Sylvester,  who  was  hidden  in  a  cave 


42  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

on  Mount  Serapte  (Soracte?)  on  account  of  the  persecution 
and  he  would  baptize  him  and  heal  his  leprosy.  When  Syl- 
vester appeared  Constantine  asked  him, "Who  were  these  gods 
Peter  and  Paul?"  Thereupon  Sylvester  ordered  his  deacon  to 
show  him  their  pictures  and  the  Emperor  confessed  to  all  his 
"satraps"  that  they  were  the  men  who  had  appeared  to  him 
in  his  dream. 

After  this  Constantine  prepared  for  baptism.  In  his  palace 
of  the  Lateran  he  did  penance  for  his  former  sins  in  a  hair 
shirt  (uno  cilicio).  Then  by  imposition  of  the  hands  of  the 
clergy  he  was  admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  pontiff  (ad 
ipsum  pontificem  veni);  and  there  he  renounced  Satan,  his 
pomps  and  works,  and  idols  made  with  hands,  and  declared 
his  belief  in  God  the  Father,  Maker  of  all  things  visible  and 
invisible,  and  in  His  only  Son  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  born  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Virgin  Mary.  He  made  this  confession 
voluntarily  before  all  the  people  and  received  baptism  by  a 
threefold  immersion.  In  the  font  he  perceived  a  heavenly 
hand,  which  by  its  touch  cleansed  him  from  his  leprosy. 
Clothed  in  white  garments  he  received  the  sevenfold  unction, 
and  on  his  forehead  the  sign  of  the  cross.  All  the  people  said 
Ameny  and  the  Pope  added  Pax  tibi.  Further  on  the  day  after 
baptism  Sylvester  instructed  Constantine  in  the  mysteries  of 
the  faith  and  the  great  power  which  our  Saviour  had  given  to 
Peter  in  the  assurance,  "Thou  art  Peter  and  upon  this  rock  I 
will  build  my  church."  In  view  of  this  Constantine,  recogniz- 
ing in  Peter  and  his  successors  the  Vicars  of  Christ,  granted 
to  them  imperial  dignity. 

The  Church  of  Rome  is  given  precedence  over  Antioch, 
Alexandria,  Constantinople  and  Jerusalem,  and  the  Pope 
(pontifex),  and  his  successors  are  to  preside  over  all  bishops 
(sacerdotibus),  and  to  decide  all  matters  of  worship  and  faith. 
The  church  in  the  Lateran  is  to  be  known  as  the  head  and 
summit  of  all  churches  in  the  entire  world  (Caput  et  verticem 
omnium  ecclesiarum  in  orbe  terrarum).  In  addition  to  this  the 
Emperor  built  two  churches,  one  to  Peter,  and  the  other  to 
Paul,  and  granted  them  lands  in  Judaea,  Greece,  Asia,  Africa, 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  43 

Italy,  and  the  various  islands,  to  be  administered  by  Sylvester 
and  his  successors.  Then  follows  the  gift  of  the  Lateran  palace 
and  the  peculiar  privileges  reserved  for  the  Pope.  He  may 
wear  an  imperial  crown  and  the  insignia  of  an  emperor,  the 
purple  robe,  etc.;  he  is  to  rank  with  the  commander  of  the 
imperial  cavalry;  he  is  to  have  the  imperial  banners  and  orna- 
ments and  all  the  advantages  of  exalted  rank.  As  for  the  Roman 
clergy  the  Emperor  gave  them  the  position  of  senators,  pa- 
tricians and  consuls,  and  the  right  to  be  adorned  like  the  im- 
perial soldiery.  Their  horses'  saddle  clothes  were  to  be  of  the 
whitest  linen.  Sylvester  had  in  addition  authority  to  receive 
any  Roman  noble  desirous  of  entering  the  monastic  life. 

But  as  the  holy  Sylvester  in  his  deep  humility  refused  to 
wear  the  imperial  crown  the  Emperor  placed  a  tiara  on  his 
head,  and  out  of  reverence  he  held  the  bridle  of  the  Pope's 
horse  and  acted  as  his  groom.  Feeling,  moreover,  that  it  was 
not  seemly  that  anyone  should  rule  in  Rome  except  Sylvester 
and  his  successors,  Constantine  decided  to  withdraw  from 
Rome  and  to  fix  the  seat  of  his  empire  at  Byzantium,  where 
he  intended  to  build  a  city,  and  call  it  after  his  own  name.  All 
the  provinces  of  Italy,  perhaps  all  of  the  Western  Empire, 
were  to  be  henceforward  under  the  sway  of  Sylvester  and  his 
successors.  Those  who  dispute  this  decree,  will  find  that  Peter 
and  Paul  will  prove  his  enemies,  and  he  will  be  burned  in  the 
lowest  hell  and  perish  with  the  devil. 

The  date  is  III  Kal.  Aprt.  Cons.  Fl  Constantino  and 
Galligano  viris  illustribus. 

Fortunately  the  interest  in  this  strange  document  is  not 
now  controversial.  For  centuries  it  has  been  rejected  by  all 
Catholic  historians  as  a  palpable  forgery,  as  was  demonstrated 
by  Laurentius  Valla,  a  canon  of  the  Lateran  Basilica  in  the 
fifteenth  century.  It  is  tolerably  certain  that  the  Donation  was 
not  used  to  induce  the  Franks  to  create  the  Papal  States. 
Indeed  the  Popes  did  not  allude  to  it  till  the  eleventh  century. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  however,  it  was  universally  accepted  as 
authentic,  and  Constantine  was  regarded  as  the  founder  of 
the  temporal  power.  Even  the  Greek  church  adopted  it  in  sup- 


44  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

port  of  the  privileges  of  the  clergy  of  Constantinople,  the  New 
Rome.  WyclifF  employed  it  in  his  anti-papal  argument  to  show- 
that  the  Pope's  power  came  not  from  on  high,  but  from  Con- 
stantine,  an  heretical  emperor.  Before  him  Dante  had  ex- 
pressed sorrow  that  the  decline  of  the  spiritual  purity  of  the 
church  dates  from  when  this  emperor  made  "the  first  rich 
pope."  The  last  to  make  any  attempt  to  uphold  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Donation  was  Cardinal  Baronius  in  the  early  days 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  controversy  now  rages  about 
its  origin,  its  object,  and  its  first  appearance.  It  is  said  to  be 
a  Frankish  composition  and  to  date  not  earlier  than  A.D.  750 
nor  later  than  A.D.  850.  It  is  permissible,  therefore,  to  hazard 
an  opinion  that  it  was  a  polemic,  aimed  at  the  iconoclast 
emperors  at  Byzantium.  In  the  first  place  it  endeavours  to  con- 
trast their  arrogant  assertion  to  rule  in  the  church  with  the  I 
humility  of  the  founder  of  New  Rome.  Then  it  demonstrates 
the  early  date  of  the  pictures  of  the  saints.  Further  it  shows 
that  the  estates  of  the  church  throughout  the  Empire,  in  the 
East  as  well  as  in  the  West,  were  given  by  Constantine  and, 
therefore,  were  most  improperly  confiscated  by  Leo  the  Isau- 
rian.  Finally  the  absurd  privileges  bestowed  on  the  clergy 
of  the  Roman  church  are  just  what  might  be  expected 
of  those  who  hankered  after  the  splendours  of  the  Byzantine 
court,  whether  at  Constantinople  or  even  of  Ravenna.  At  any 
rate,  the  document  is  of  extreme  interest  as  indicating  the  as- 
pirations and  ideas  of  the  period,  though  it  had  at  first  but 
little  influence  in  shaping  the  course  of  events  or  the  rise  of 
the  papal  power. 

As  it  became  increasingly  evident  that  Italy  must  slip  out 
of  the  grasp  of  the  Byzantine  emperor  and  that  the  Lombards 
would  become  masters  of  the  peninsula,  it  was  necessary  for 
the  Roman  church  to  find  a  protector  sufficiently  remote  not 
constantly  to  interfere  with  its  influence  in  Italy  and  powerful 
enough  to  reduce  the  Lombards  to  insignificance.  With  this 
end  in  view  the  Popes  turned  to  the  Franks  who  for  more  than 
two  centuries  had  supported  them. 

The  Frankish  kingdom  was  founded  by  Clovis,  originally 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  45 

a  petty  king  of  the  Salian  Franks,  who,  in  A.D.  486,  overthrew 
the  kingdom  of  the  Roman  Syagrius,  and  afterwards  suc- 
cessively defeated  the  Alemanni  on  the  Rhine,  the  Visigoths 
in  southwestern  France,  and  the  Burgundians  in  south- 
eastern Gaul.  Clovis  embraced  Christianity  in  its  orthodox 
form,  and  was  baptized  by  St.  Remigius  at  Rheims.  At  his 
death  in  A.D.  511  his  kingdom  was  divided  among  his  four 
sons,  and  was  only  rarely  united  under  a  single  monarch. 
The  Frankish  empire  comprised  Justrasia,  the  home  of  the 
Franks,  reaching  to  and  beyond  the  Rhine;  Neustria,  the 
territory  of  the  Salians,  containing  the  cities  of  Soissons  and 
Paris;  Aquitania,  the  old  kingdom  of  the  Visigoths,  extending 
from  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  the  Rhone;  and  Burgundia,  the 
country  east  of  the  Rhone,  with  the  Alps  as  its  western  boun- 
dary. The  dynasty  of  Clovis,  known  as  the  Merovingian  from 
Merovech,  the  grandfather  of  the  founder,  a  semi-mythical 
hero  born  of  a  Frankish  queen  and  a  sea  monster,  or  demigod, 
continued  for  ten  generations;  and  its  history  is  one  tale  of  blood, 
cruelty,  and  lust,  ending  in  the  utter  incompetence  of  its  last 
representatives.  For  more  than  a  century  the  kings  of  this  line 
were  rots  faineants  under  the  control  of  mighty  officials  known  as 
"Mayors  of  the  Palace,"  who  ruled  without  assuming  the  titles 
of  royalty. 

Among  these  mayors  was  a  Ripuarian  noble,  Arnulf 
Bishop  of  Metz,  who,  with  his  friend  Pippin  of  Landen,  ad- 
ministered affairs  for  Dagobert  II  A.D.  622.  However,  Arnulf 
abandoned  his  bishopric  in  627  and  forsook  the  world,  dying 
in  the  odour  of  sanctity  A.D.  641. 

The  house  of  Arnulf  underwent  a  temporary  obscuration 
for  more  than  forty  years  from  which  it  emerged  under  the 
grandson  of  its  sainted  founder  Pippin,  of  Heristal.  In  A.D. 
687,  as  Austrasian  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  he  won  a  decisive 
victory  over  the  Neustrians  at  Textri  in  Picardy;  and  for 
twenty-seven  years  till  A.D.  714  was  virtual  ruler  of  the  Frank- 
ish dominions.  His  death  was  followed  by  a  civil  war  among 
his  sons  ending  in  the  supremacy  of  his  natural  son,  Charles 
Martel,  the  saviour  of  Gaul  from  the  Mohammedans  at  the 


46  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

battle  of  Tours,  A.D.  732.  Still,  however,  the  Arnulfs  ruled  in 
the  name  of  the  legitimate  Merovingians,  whose  authority 
as  time  went  on  became  more  and  more  shadowy.  Though 
bound  by  alliance  to  the  Lombards  in  Italy,  and  refusing  to 
help  the  Romans  at  the  urgent  request  of  Pope  Gregory  III 
(A.D.  731-741),  Charles  and  his  family  were  ever  drawing 
closer  to  the  Papacy,  as  the  influence  of  the  great  English 
administrator  and  missionary  Winfrid  of  Crediton,  better 
known  as  St.  Boniface  (Bonifacius  or  Bonifatius),  increased. 
Since  A.D.  722,  when  Gregory  II  had  consecrated  him  a  bishop, 
without  a  see  but  with  a  commission  to  exercise  authority 
among  the  barbarous  nations  east  of  the  Rhine,  he  had  ad- 
vanced in  power.  His  extraordinary  devotion  to  the  Roman 
See  was  repaid  by  the  unbounded  confidence  of  successive 
popes;  and  Charles  Martel  extended  his  patronage  and  pro- 
tection to  this  energetic  foreigner,  who  in  his  zeal  for  reforming 
the  morals  of  the  church  held  frequent  councils  without  re- 
gard to  the  wishes  of  any  local  hierarchy.  He  even  exercised 
his  own  judgment  in  distributing  papal  honours,  when  com- 
manded to  confer  them  by  the  Pontiff.  Boniface  ultimately 
attained  to  the  dignity  of  Archbishop  of  Mainz  and  Primate  of 
Germany.  In  old  age  he  resigned  this  position  in  order  to  give 
rein  to  his  missionary  zeal,  which  led  him  to  a  martyr's 
death  in  A.D.  755.  His  labours  in  the  Frankish  realm  resulted 
more  than  anything  else  in  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom 
and,  indirectly,  of  the  empire  of  the  descendants  of  St.  Arnulf. 
In  the  meantime  the  Roman  church  had  been  constantly 
"recovering"  new  accessions  of  cities  and  territories.  Liutprand, 
the  Lombard  king,  though  he  is  styled  almost  invariably  by 
the  papal  chronicles  "most  wicked,"  was  unbounded  in  liber- 
ality to  Gregory  II  and  III  and  to  their  successor  Zacharias 
(A.D.  715-752).  These  Popes  often  received  cities  and  terri- 
tories in  the  name  of  the  Roman  people,  as  though  they  repre- 
sented in  themselves  the  rights  of  Rome.  Indeed  the  Papal 
States,  which  were  being  thus  rapidly  acquired  and  consoli- 
dated, were  roughly  the  possessions  of  the  Byzantine  Empire 
in  Northern  Italy,  unconquered  by  the  Lombards  in  the  sixth 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  47 

and  seventh  centuries.  They  thus  formed  a  principality,  which, 
extending  from  northeast  to  southwest,  virtually  cut  Italy 
in  two,  and  was  destined  in  future  ages  to  make  a  political  union 
between  the  north  and  south  of  the  peninsula  impossible. 

The  years  A.D.  740  to  744  witnessed  the  passing  away 
of  an  older  generation  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  Leo 
III,  the  Isaurian,  died  in  740  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son 
Constantine  V,  a  fiercer  iconoclast  than  his  father.  In  the  next 
year  both  Charles  Martel  and  Gregory  III  passed  away.  In 
January,  744,  Liutprand,  the  greatest  of  the  Lombard  kings, 
and  the  most  liberal  benefactor  to  the  Church,  ended  his  long 
reign,  unregretted  by  the  papal  chroniclers,  who  declared  that 
it  was  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of  the  reigning  Pope  Zacharias 
(A.D.  741-752).  The  coming  generation  was  destined  to  witness 
the  extinction  of  the  Byzantine  rule,  the  rise  of  the  New  Frankish 
monarchy  and  the  ruin  of  the  Lombard  power  in  Italy.  During 
the  entire  period  the  church  of  Rome  was  guided  by  popes, 
some  of  whom  ruled  during  many  years,  and  none,  except  a 
Stephen,  who  died  suddenly  two  days  after  his  election,  for 
only  a  few  months  as  in  the  preceding  and  following  centuries. 
Many  were  men  of  remarkable  ability  who  used  every  op- 
portunity for  aggrandizing  the  papacy  and  the  prestige  of 
their  see.  Seldom  was  there  a  more  remarkable  succession 
than  from  Gregory  II  in  A.D.  715  to  Hadrian  I,  who  died  in 
A.D.  795.  During  this  period  of  eighty  years  only  eight  popes 
were  elected.  Hadrian's  successor,  Leo  III,  died  in  A.D.  814. 

Charles  Martel  left  two  sons,  Carloman  and  Pippin,  who 
ruled  jointly  as  Mayors  of  the  Palace,  but  in  A.D.  747  Carlo- 
man  retired  to  Mount  Soracte,  where  he  built  or  enlarged  the 
monastery  of  St.  Sylvester,  the  Pope  around  whose  name  the 
legends  of  Constantine's  Conversion  and  Donation  circle. 
There  he  lived  the  life  of  a  monk  till  finding  his  devotion 
interrupted  by  the  crowds  he  attracted,  he  fled  incognito  to 
Monte  Cassino,  where  he  passed  some  time  in  obscurity.  In 
A.D.  751  Pippin  assumed  the  sovereignty  so  long  exercised 
by  his  ancestors,  and  became  king  of  the  Franks;  and  with  the 
consent  of  Pope  Zacharias,  to  whom  an  embassy  had  been 


48  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

sent,  he  assumed  the  crown  at  Soissons,  where  he  was  solemnly 
anointed  by  St.  Boniface.  The  last  of  the  Merovingians, 
Childeric  III,  was  dismissed  to  a  monastery.  Though  the 
details  attending  this  transaction  are  obscure,  the  Frankish 
monarchy  now  became  united  by  the  closest  ties  to  the  Papacy, 
which  had  sanctioned  a  step,  already  delayed  for  more  than 
a  century,  by  which  the  royal  power  was  placed  in  the  hands 
of  the  family  which  had  long  exercised  it.  Nor  was  it  long  ere 
Pippin  was  called  upon  to  prove  his  gratitude  to  the  Roman  See. 

In  A.D.  751  Aistulf,  king  of  the  Lombards,  dated  a  document 
from  Ravenna  in  Palatio.  This  is  the  only  record  of  a  most 
momentous  occurrence,  the  fall  of  the  Byzantine  rule  in  north 
Italy.  Not  even  the  name  of  the  last  Exarch  is  known.  But 
though  the  fall  of  Ravenna  is  unrecorded,  it  was  of  the  utmost 
importance.  There  was  now  no  power  in  Italy  to  stand  between 
the  Romans  as  represented  by  the  Papacy  and  the  hated 
Lombards.  Aistulf  seemed  determined  to  press  his  advantage. 

Zacharias  had  been  succeeded  by  Stephen  II;  and  during 
his  short  pontificate  (A.D.  752-757)  this  Pope  crossed  the 
Alps,  appealed  boldly  to  Pippin  for  aid  against  the  enemy  of 
his  see,  and  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  Donation  which 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  papal  dominion.  It  was  in 
October  A.D.  753  that  Stephen  set  forth  on  his  journey,  first 
to  Aistulf,  and  then  to  Pippin.  Despite  all  obstacles  he 
crossed  the  Alps  and  reached  Northern  Gaul  where  he  re- 
peated the  coronation  of  Pippin  and  his  consort  Bertha  with 
their  sons  Charles  and  Carloman.  Finally  at  the  famous  diet 
at  Quiercy  (Carisiacum)  he  obtained  the  promise  that  Pippin 
would  vindicate  the  rights  of  the  Roman  See,  if  need  be  by 
attacking  the  Lombards,  and  also  the  gift  of  extensive  terri- 
tories when  the  Lombards  were  defeated.  This  is  the 
Donation  of  Pippin,  which  has  been  long  a  subject  of 
keen  dispute.  On  it  at  least  was  based  the  title  to  the  "State 
of  the  Church,"  which  may  be  said  to  date  from  A.D.  754,  as 
the  foundation  of  the  city  does  from  the  same  year  B.C.  To 
make  good  his  promise  to  the  Pope,  Pippin  invaded  Italy, 
and  forced  Aistulf  to  cede  Ravenna  and  other  cities  to  Stephen 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  49 

II,  or  rather  to  the  Romans.  But  as  Aistulf  did  not  fulfil  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  there  was  a  second  expedition  by  Pippin, 
on  the  urgent  appeal  of  Stephen  II.  When  Aistulf  besieged 
Rome  and  the  city  was  itself  in  danger,  the  Pope  wrote  to 
Pippin  two  letters  sent  by  the  hand  of  the  Abbot  Werner. 
But  the  papal  messenger  bore  a  third  from  one  even  greater 
than  the  Pope,  St.  Peter  himself.  Together  with  the  Ever 
Virgin  Mary  and  the  entire  army  of  the  celestial  host  the 
Apostle  urges  his  adopted  son,  as  he  calls  Pippin,  to  come  to 
the  rescue  of  his  city,  his  people  and  his  tomb.  Should  the 
king  presume  to  disobey  he  is  assured  that  he  will  forfeit 
the  Kingdom  of  God  and  eternal  life.  Pippin  obeyed,  and 
forced  Aistulf  to  hand  over  a  great  portion,  but  not  all  of  the 
Exarchate  to  the  see  of  St.  Peter.  Aistulf  died  in  A.D.  756, 
and  Stephen  in  the  following  year,  being  succeeded  by  his 
brother  Paul  II.  The  next  and  last  Lombard  king  was  De- 
siderius. 

The  work  begun  by  Pippin  was  completed  by  his  more 
famous  son  Charlemagne  or  Charles  the  Great  (A.D.  768-814). 
Without  entering  into  details  it  may  be  well  to  indicate  the 
stages  by  which  the  King  of  the  Franks  became  Emperor  of 
the  Romans  and  to  examine  the  causes  of  this  revolution  in 
the  world  policy  of  the  Popes. 

The  downfall  of  the  Byzantine  rule  in  Italy  was  not  alto- 
gether a  blessing  to  the  Romans;  for  if  the  iconoclast  Emperors 
stood  for  heresy,  and  the  administration  of  the  Exarchate  for 
extortion,  at  least  they  represented  a  certain  measure  of  civil- 
ization as  opposed  to  Lombard  barbarism.  As  history  relates 
the  able  diplomacy  of  the  pontiffs,  the  officialdom  of  their 
court  and  hierarchy,  the  decorations  lavished  on  the  churches 
of  Rome,  the  reader  is  apt  to  picture  a  comparatively  civilized 
society.  The  delusion  is  heightened  by  the  grandiloquent 
phrases  employed  to  describe  the  senate,  the  army  and  the  civil 
institutions  of  the  imperial  city.  But  here  and  there  an  incident 
occurs  to  remind  one  that  the  Rome  of  the  eighth  century 
was  little  removed  from  the  anarchy  of  savagery.  When,  for 
example,  at  the  death  of  Paul  I  in  A.D.  jGj,  Toto,  Duke  of 


50  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Nepi,  forced  his  kinsman  Constantine  upon  the  Papacy,  and 
there  was  a  revolution,  which  ended  in  the  deposition  of  the 
usurper  and  the  setting  up  of  Stephen  III.  The  unlucky  Con- 
stantine was  blinded,  and  many  of  his  supporters,  bishops 
and  priests,  were  deprived  of  their  eyes  and  tongues.  The  de- 
posed Pope  was  led  in  derision  through  the  streets  seated  on  a 
horse  with  a  woman's  saddle  and  heavy  weights  attached  to 
his  feet.  At  the  Synod  which  followed  he  was  brought  in  and 
blinded  as  he  was,  attacked  by  the  clergy,  because  he  dared  to 
make  a  defence.  Finally  he  was  beaten  by  them  and  thrown 
out  of  the  church  of  the  Lateran.  Such  disorders  often  occurred 
whenever  the  strong  hand  of  external  authority  happened  to 
be  withdrawn. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  despite  the  fact  that  the  iconoclasm 
of  the  emperors  tended  to  alienate  the  papacy  from  Byzantium, 
Charles  and  the  Franks  generally  sympathized  with  them  in 
their  condemnation  of  image  worship,  and,  when  Irene  re- 
established the  practice,  she  and  the  Pope  were  alike  in  oppo- 
sition to  Charles.  Nevertheless  the  ties,  partly  it  may  be  of 
self-interest,  which  bound  the  Papacy  to  the  Franks  were  too 
strong  to  be  broken  even  by  a  difference  of  opinion  on  what 
was  then  considered  an  almost  vital  point. 

The  year  A.D.  774,  when  Charles  visited  Rome  on  his 
expedition  against  Desiderius,  which  ended  in  the  destruction 
of  the  Lombard  power  in  Italy,  is  said  to  have  been  marked  by 
the  confirmation  of  the  Donation  of  Pippin.  The  liberality  of 
Charles  exceeded  that  of  his  father  as  he  declared  the  Papal 
States  to  comprise  nearly  two-thirds  of  Italy.  The  papal  domin- 
ions were  to  include  the  island  of  Corsica;  and,  starting  from 
Luna,  on  the  northwest  coast,  the  boundary  was  to  run  north 
to  Parma,  Reggio,  and  Mantua  to  Monteselice.  It  was  to  em- 
brace the  entire  Exarchate  of  Ravenna  (Sicut  antiquitus  erat) 
and  the  provinces  of  Venetia  and  Istria,  and  the  entire  Duchy 
of  Spoleto  or  Beneventum.  According  to  this  arrangement 
Lombardy  north  of  the  Po,  with  Piedmont  and  the  Riviera 
were  to  belong  to  the  Franks;  Calabria  and  Sicily  with  perhaps 
Naples,  and  Gaeta,  to  the  Byzantines;  and  all  the  rest  of  Italy 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE 


51 


to  the  Papacy.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  States  of  the 
Church  were  never  so  extensive;  and  no  trace  of  the  document 
exists  except  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis.  This  represents  an  un- 
realized dream  of  Papal  ambition,  perhaps  one  which  was 
never  seriously  cherished,  and  certainly  it  never  entered  into 
the  sphere  of  practical  politics.  By  A.D.  791,  the  end  of  the 
pontificate  of  Hadrian,  the  temporal  dominion  of  the  Pope  in 
Italy  was  an  established  fact,  brought  into  being  by  the 
necessity  of  the  age  and  recognized  by  the  Frankish  monarch 
who  was  the  one  great  Christian  ruler  in  Western  Europe. 

Hadrian  I  appears  to  have  been  a  ruler  of  high  character 
and  ability,  to  have  won  the  respect  of  Charles,  who,  however, 
did  not  allow  himself  to  be  dictated  to  even  in  ecclesiastical 
matters.  The  Synod  of  Frankfort,  for  example,  held  under  his 
protection  in  A.D.  794,  forbade  the  sacred  images  to  be  wor- 
shipped, though  it  allowed  them  to  be  retained  in  the  churches. 
Hadrian  was  able  to  maintain  his  position  with  dignity  till  his 
death  in  A.D.  795,  when  once  more  the  barbarism  of  papal 
Rome  stood  revealed.  Hadrian,  a  man  of  noble  family,  had  the 
support  of  his  kindred  and  entrusted  them  with  positions  of 
authority.  His  two  nephews,  Paschalis  and  Campulus,  held  two 
of  the  highest  positions  in  his  court,  the  one  being  Primicerius, 
and  the  other  Saccelarius. 

The  Papacy  was  at  this  time  administered  as  a  kingdom 
by  great  officers  around  the  throne,  whose  power  exceeded 
those  of  the  various  provincial  princes  represented  by  the 
bishops.  Already  the  Pope's  court  was  modelled  on  the  im- 
perial palace;  and  to  understand  the  capacity  in  which  he  con- 
ferred the  imperial  diadem  on  Charles  it  is  necessary  to  have 
some  idea  of  the  Government  of  the  Church  and  City  of  Rome 
in  the  eighth  century.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  Exarchate 
of  Ravenna  in  the  seventh  century,  the  ruling  powers  of  the 
City  had  been  the  Army  and  the  Church.  The  neglect  of  the 
Byzantine  government  to  do  anything  for  the  protection  of 
Rome  against  the  encroachments  of  the  Lombards  forced  the 
Popes  to  have  considerable  influence  in  the  disposition  of  the 
soldiers  who  composed  the  aristocracy  of  the  city.  The  Ex- 


52  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ercitus  Romanus  took  the  place  of  the  Senatus  Populusque 
Romanus  of  earlier  times  and  exercised  much  influence  in  the 
papal  elections.  In  the  time  of  Hadrian  its  duces  appear  to 
have  been  nominated  by  the  Pope,  as  were  most  of  the  civil 
officers.  All  these  belonged  to  the  ruling  families  of  Rome, 
the  people  being  of  little  or  no  account.  Far  above  all  the 
clergy  stood  the  seven  great  officials  of  the  papal  court.  These 
corresponded  to  the  seven  diaconates  of  the  city,  and  none  of 
those  who  held  these  positions  were  of  priestly  rank.  Yet,  like 
the  deacons  of  an  earlier  date,  they  were  the  actual  rulers. 
Each  of  these  officials  was  head  of  his  respective  department, 
or  schola;  and  the  papal  court  was  served  by  a  perfect  host  of 
officials.  Over  all  was  the  Pope  who  represented  both  the  Ex- 
ercitus,  the  aristocracy  of  Rome,  and  the  immense  clerical 
administration. 

The  successor  of  Hadrian  was  Leo  III  (A.D.  795),  a  man 
apparently  of  humble  origin,  unable  to  cope  with  the  officialdom 
of  Church  and  Army  of  the  Respublica  Romana.  On  St.  Mark's 
Day  (April  25,  799),  Paschalis  and  Campulus  accompanied 
Leo  from  the  Lateran  in  a  procession  to  St.  Lorenzo  in  Lucina. 
Their  confederates  attacked  the  Pope  at  the  monastery  of  St. 
Sylvester  in  Capite,  dragged  him  from  his  horse,  tore  his 
vestments,  and  endeavoured  to  deprive  him  of  his  eyes  and 
tongue.  For  a  time  Leo  was  held  a  captive;  but  his  sight  and 
speech  were  restored,  it  is  said,  by  a  miracle,  and  ultimately 
he  managed  to  escape  to  Charles  at  Paderborn.  The  city  was 
now  in  the  hands  of  revolutionaries,  who  elected  no  anti- 
Pope  but  calmly  awaited  the  coming  of  their  over-lord,  the 
Frankish  King. 

Charles  was  neither  moved  to  instant  vengeance  by  this 
outrage,  nor  convinced  that  Leo  owed  his  liberty  and  recovery 
to  divine  aid.  As  patron  of  the  Roman  Church,  custodian  of 
the  keys  of  St.  Peter's  tomb,  and  standard  bearer  of  the  Roman 
City,  Charles,  when  the  insurgents  sent  their  accusations 
against  Leo,  felt  and  acted  as  a  judge.  His  adviser,  the  English- 
man Alcuin,  induced  him  to  put  off  his  expedition  against  the 
Saxons,  and  to  repair  to  Rome.  At  the  same  time  he  recom- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  53 

mended  deliberation  in  dealing  with  the  Pope  and  his  rebellious 
subjects.  Charles  entered  the  city  on  November  23,  800,  the 
Pope  having  returned  previously  under  escort.  What  ensued 
is  related  with  disappointing  brevity  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis. 
Much  obscurity  surrounds  this  transaction,  and  indeed  all 
the  early  pontificate  of  Leo  III.  He  solemnly  in  the  presence 
of  Charles  cleared  himself  by  a  solemn  oath  of  the  things  laid 
to  his  charge  by  his  enemies,  and  this  purgation  was  deemed 
sufficient.  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  Alcuin  confesses 
that  one  of  the  letters  relating  to  the  affair  of  the  Pope  was 
so  likely  to  cause  offence  that  he  considered  it  advisable  to 
put  it  into  the  fire.  The  suspicious  circumstances  attendant 
on  the  outrage  perpetrated  by  Paschalis  and  his  friends  and 
the  flight  of  Leo  must  be  taken  into  account  in  estimating  his 
share  in  the  step  he  was  about  to  take. 

On  Christmas  Day  Charles  and  his  suite  attended  Holy 
Mass  in  St.  Peter's.  As  he  knelt  at  the  altar,  Leo  III  placed  a 
diadem  on  his  head,  and  the  multitude  with  one  voice  ex- 
claimed: "Life  and  Victory  of  Charles  the  most  pious  Augustus, 
crowned  of  God,  great  and  peace  giving  Emperor."  The  Pope 
then  anointed  him  and  his  son  Pippin,  and  kneeling  down 
(according  to  the  Frankish  account)  did  him  homage. 

Thus  did  Leo  accomplish  one  of  the  most  momentous  acts 
in  the  history  of  Christendom,  the  significance  of  which  has 
been  debated  ever  since.  Did  the  Pope  proclaim  Charles  of 
his  own  initiative  or  by  some  preconceived  plan?  Did  Charles 
take  the  Empire  as  a  gift  from  the  Pope?  Who  conferred  on 
the  Frankish  king  the  title  of  Augustus?  In  the  subsequent 
controversies  between  the  partisans  of  the  Papacy  and  the 
Empire  an  endless  stream  of  arguments  poured  forth  to  show 
that  the  imperial  authority  was  delegated  by  the  Pope,  or  that 
the  papal  see  was  subordinate  to  the  Emperor  as  God's  vice- 
gerent on  earth.  Here  perhaps  it  is  sufficient  to  point  out  a  few 
facts,  the  recognition  of  which  may  help  to  decide  so  vexed 
a  problem. 

In  the  first  place  it  should  be  remembered  that  at  Con- 
stantinople   the    Patriarchs    always    performed    the   office   of 


54  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

crowning  a  new  Emperor,  yet  without  any  idea  of  thereby 
claiming  to  be  other  than  subjects  of  their  earthly  ruler. 

In  the  second  place,  whilst  the  Byzantine  ceremonial  of 
crowning  the  Emperor  was  solemn  and  orderly,  the  older 
tradition  was  that  the  soldiers  should  acclaim  their  leader  as 
Emperor  by  sudden  impulse.  The  Romans  at  this  time  claimed 
to  be  the  Army  and  as  such  they  may  have  exercised  the 
privilege  of  saluting  Charles  as  Emperor,  just  as  in  A.D.  361 
the  soldiers  in  Gaul  had,  to  employ  the  expression  of  Gibbon, 
pronounced  the  "fatal  word  Augustus"  when  they  saluted 
Julian,  raised  him  on  a  shield  and  crowned  him  with  a  military 
collar  in  lieu  of  a  diadem.  This  combination  of  a  Byzantine 
coronation  and  the  salutation  of  the  Roman  army  may  have 
been  arranged  by  Leo  III  and  the  Romans,  but  can  hardly 
have  been  entirely  unpremeditated.  This  may,  however,  ex- 
plain how  the  coronation  and  acclamation  came  as  a  surprise 
to  Charles  and  account  for  his  having  assured  his  biographer 
Einhard  that  he  never  would  have  entered  the  church  had  he 
known  what  Leo  was  intending  to  do. 

By  crowning  Charles,  Leo  III  had  given  Old  Rome  as  well 
as  New  an  Emperor.  But  even  then  there  was  no  idea  of  creat- 
ing a  Western  as  well  as  an  Eastern  Empire.  In  theory  at 
least  the  Empire  was  one  and  indivisible,  and  though  there 
might  be  two  or  more  Emperors  there  could  be  but  one  Empire. 
Various  devices  were  invented  to  disguise  the  fact  that  Charles 
had  not  divided  the  Empire  by  assuming  the  diadem.  It  was 
declared  that  there  was  no  Emperor  at  the  time,  but  only 
Irene,  murderess  of  her  son,  ruling  in  Constantinople.  Charles 
sought  to  remedy  his  defective  title  by  making  an  offer  of 
marriage  to  Irene,  and  later  endeavoured  to  be  accepted  as  a 
colleague  by  the  Byzantine  Augustus.  But  no  theory  could 
prevent  the  fact  of  a  rupture  between  East  and  West  in  prac- 
tice. The  coronation  had  called  into  being  a  Western  Empire. 
It  was  also  an  attempt  to  bring  the  divided  nations  of  Western 
Christendom  into  unity  by  reverting  to  the  one  imperial 
government  with  one  authority  over  all  shared  between  the 
temporal  and  spiritual  powers.  By  restoring  the  ancient  order 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  EMPIRE  55 

it  was   hoped   that  the   ancient   civilization,   purified   by  the 
Church,  would  return. 

By  the  close  of  the  ninth  century  two  fundamental  ideas 
of  the  Middle  Ages  had  come  into  being.  A  world  federation 
of  Christians  as  expressed  in  the  Empire,  and  the  sovereign 
authority  of  the  Church  embodied  in  the  Papal  States.  For 
centuries  they  were  both  part  of  the  political  theories  of 
Western  Europe.  Their  embodiment  continued  to  exist  long 
after  their  significance  was  lost.  The  idea  of  an  Empire  ceased 
to  exercise  its  influence  in  the  fifteenth  century;  but  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  ni  saint,  ni  Empire,  ni  romain,  lasted  till 
1806.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  Reformation  shattered  the 
pretensions  of  the  Pope  to  rule  as  a  sovereign  over  all  the 
nations  of  Europe;  but  the  Papal  States  lingered  on  till  1870. 
Yet  the  statesmanship  of  the  eighth  century  which  amid  much 
barbarism  and  disorder  conceived  the  idea  of  a  united  Chris- 
tendom, which  made  the  church  call  upon  the  great  Frankish 
chieftain  to  become  Augustus  pacificus  and  Charles  to  en- 
trust the  Pope  with  such  vast  power  over  all  Christians, 
cannot  be  despised.  Its  ideals  were  noble  and  were  perhaps 
less  tainted  by  personal  consideration  than  those  of  ages 
which  can  boast  of  a  far  greater  material  civilization.  There 
was  a  sincere  desire  on  the  part  of  the  rulers  to  build  up  what 
they  conceived  a  great  Christian  state  in  the  world. 

AUTHORITIES 

The  chief  authority  for  the  history  of  the  Popes  is  the  Liber  Pontificalis 
which  after  A.D.  625  becomes  the  work  of  possibly  a  contemporary.  See 
Duchesne's  Introduction,  p.  cxxxiii.  The  annotated  translation  by  L.  R. 
Loomis  {The  Book  of  the  Popes,  1916)  ends  with  the  year  590.  The  Greek 
historians  are  Theophanes  (d.  818)  and  Nicephorus  (d.  828).  Both  these 
writers  are  violent  opponents  of  the  Iconoclasts.  The  Life  of  Charles  the 
Great  was  written  by  his  friend  Einhard,  or  Eginhart,  who  also  gives  an 
account  of  the  translation  of  the  relics  of  St.  Marcellinus  and  Peter,  a  racy 
account  of  a  transaction  marked  more  by  fraud  than  piety,  which  throws  a 
curious  light  on  the  religion  of  the  period.  Most  that  is  of  value  in  the 
Liber  Pontificalis,  etc.,  is  to  be  found  in  Johannes  Haller's  Entstehung  des 
Kirchenstaats. 

For  the  different  topics  treated  in  this  chapter  the  student  may  consult 
Gregorovius'  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  Ill,  especially  for  his  account  of 


56 


INTRODUCTION  TO   HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 


the  Popes  as  church  builders  and  restorers.  Bede's  Historia  Gentis  Anglo- 
rum  is  of  course  the  authority  for  Honorius'  dealing  with  Britain.  Dr. 
Mann's  Lives  of  the  Popes  in  the  Early  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  I,  Part  I,  and 
Leclercq's  edition  of  Hefele's  Councils  may  be  consulted.  For  the  Rise  of 
Islam  refer  to  Cambridge  Medieval  History,  Vol.  I,  Ch.  X,  by  A.  A.  Bevan. 
Harnack's  History  of  Dogma,  and  F.  Loofs  are  authorities  on  the  contro- 
versies regarding  the  Person  of  Christ;  and  F.  J.  F-Jackson  treats  the  subject 
in  his  History  of  the  Christian  Church  to  A.D.  4.61  (sixth  edition).  Bright's 
Age  of  the  Fathers,  Vol.  II,  Ch.  XXXVI  and  following,  is  very  valuable. 
An  account  of  Constans  II  and  the  Monothelite  controversy  is  to  be  found 
in  Professor  Kriiger's  Article  on  "Monothelitism"  in  Hastings'  Encyclopedia 
of  Religion  and  Ethics,  where  the  literature  on  the  subject  is  given;  see  also 
Hefele's  Councils  (French  Edition).  For  the  decay  of  Byzantines  in  Italy  I 
recommend  the  study  of  Chs.  XII  (E.  W.  Brooks),  XIX,  XXI  (Dr.  Gerhard 
Seeliger),  XX  (P.  Vinogradoff)  and  XXI  (F.  J.  F-Jackson),  in  the  Cam- 
bridge Mediaval  History,  Vol.  II.  Refer  to  History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire 
from  Arcadius  to  Irene,  by  J.  B.  Bury,  and,  of  course,  to  Gibbon's  Forty-ninth 
chapter.  These  deal  also  with  Iconoclasm,  on  which  see  Milman,  Latin 
Christianity,  Bk.  IV,  Ch.  VII,  and  G.  T.  Stokes'  "Iconoclastae,"  in  the  Diet, 
of  Christian  Antiquities, — a  most  suggestive  article.  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her 
Invaders,  Vol.  VI,  pp.  451  and  552-505,  denies  the  genuineness  of  the  corre- 
spondence between  Gregory  II  and  Leo,  the  Isaurian.  St.  Boniface's  life  by 
Willibald  has  been  translated  by  George  W.  Robinson  (1916).  Consult 
Milman,  Hodgkin  and  the  Bibliography  to  Ch.  XVI  of  the  Cambridge 
Mediaval  History,  Vol.  II.  For  Frankish  History  and  the  rise  of  the  house  of 
Arnulf  from  whom  sprang  Charles  Martel,  Pippin,  and  Charles  the  Great, 
Hodgkin,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  VII,  Chs.  I— I II,  is  very  useful.  The  text  of  the  story 
of  the  conversion  and  donation  of  Constantine  is  in  Haller,  pp.  241  ff. 
Charles'  grant  of  territory  to  Hadrian  is  given  in  Hodgkin,  Vol.  VII,  Note 
E,  where  it  is  discussed.  It  is  also  in  Haller,  p.  54,  from  the  Liber  Pontificalis. 
The  perplexing  question  of  the  innocence  of  Leo  III  is  treated  by  Mann,  Lives 
of  the  Popes,  Vol.  II,  pp.  19  ff.  Alcuin's  letters  throw  light  on  the  subject.  See 
the  Life  of  Alcuin,  by  C.  J.  B.  Gaskoin.  The  Coronation  of  Charles  is  the 
subject  of  a  vast  mass  of  literature,  the  introduction  to  which  should  be 
Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire,  Ch.  IV,  "The  restoration  of  the  Empire  of  the 
West." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    SO-CALLED    DARK   AGES 

The  Dark  Ages  a  misnomer  —  Strength  of  the  Papacy  —  Rapid  decay  of  Charles' 
Empire  —  Character  of  Louis  the  Pious  —  Two  Teutonic  Nations,  the  Germans 
and  the  French  —  Feudalism  —  Influences  on  the  early  development  of  the 
Church  —  Persecution  —  Church  law  —  Organization  —  The  Church  Divine  —  The 
Church  and  letters  —  Intellectual  stimulus  of  theology — Feudal  influences  — 
The  Churches  of  East  and  West  —  Nicolas  I  (the  Great)  —  Ignatius  and  Photius  — 
Splendid  but  precarious  position  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  —  Elec- 
tion of  Ignatius  as  Patriarch  —  Ignatius  opposes  Bardas  —  Moral  depravity  at 
Constantinople  —  Photius  supplants  Ignatius  —  Nicolas  I  excommunicates 
Photius  —  Ignatius  —  Nicolas  and  Lothair's  adultery  —  Hincmar  of  Reims  — 
Character  of  Nicolas  I  —  The  False  Decretals  —  Universal  employment  of  Latin  — 
Controversy  stimulates  the  intellect  —  Devotional  literature  —  The  Dark  Age 
of  the  Papacy  —  Formosus  —  The  counts  of  Tusculum  —  Anarchy  in  Europe  — 
The  Saxon  Dynasty  —  Accusations  against  John  XII  —  Insecurity  of  the  Popes  — 
Crescentius  —  Papacy  dependent  of  Tusculum  —  Influence  of  the  Papacy  outside 
Rome  —  Canute's  letter  —  Results  of  the  Dark  Ages. 

The  term  "Dark  Ages"  is  not  a  misnomer,  though  it  covers 
a  period  of  decay,  disorder,  and  confusion.  At  the  same  time 
there  are  not  wanting  signs  to  show  that  the  light  of  reason  was 
by  no  means  extinguished.  On  the  contrary,  especially  in  the 
Church,  great  conservative  and  creative  forces  were  at  work 
which  preserved  much  of  the  older  civilization  and  also  brought 
new  conceptions  of  social  order  into  being.  The  period  from  the 
opening  of  the  ninth  to  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  was 
characterized  by  the  inextinguishable  vitality  of  the  Church, 
and  especially  the  Roman  Church,  under  every  conceivable  dis- 
advantage. This  may  be  said  to  be  due  to  (I)  The  inherent 
strength  of  the  Papacy.  (II)  The  retention  of  the  law  and 
languages  of  the  Roman  world.  (Ill)  The  constant  develop- 
ment of  religious  ideas  under  the  influence  of  monasticism. 
(IV)  The  formulation  of  doctrines  and  practices,  which  were 
accepted  for  centuries.  That  such  things  should  have  been 
possible  when  Europe  was  a  prey  to  barbarism,  continually 
bursting  in  through  new  and  unexpected  channels,  is  sufficient 

57 


58  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

proof  that  neither  the  light  of  divine  guidance  nor  of  human 
intelligence  had  entirely  failed. 

I.  The  newly  founded  Empire  of  the  West  was  remark- 
able for  the  promise  it  gave  of  better  things.  Charles  the  Great, 
with  all  his  moral  defects  and  imperfect  education,  was  no 
mere  conqueror  of  nations,  but  a  man  of  singular  enlighten- 
ment, who  in  his  later  days  invited  learned  men  like  Paul,  the 
Lombard  Deacon,  and  Peter  of  Pisa  to  his  court;  and  his 
friendship  and  correspondence  with  the  Northumbrian  Alcuin, 
the  Christian  humanist  of  the  last  half  of  the  eighth  century, 
is  well  known.  His  government  was  statesmanlike,  and  his 
policy  enlightened,  and  he  did  all  in  his  power  to  federate  the 
Empire  which  his  warlike  enterprises  had  created.  It  seemed 
indeed  at  one  time  that  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  West  would 
become,  not  a  theory,  but  a  permanent  reality. 

But  after  his  death  on  January  28,  814,  a  period  first  of  slow 
and  soon  of  rapid  disintegration  set  in.  His  son,  Louis  the  Pious, 
called  in  later  time  le  Debonnaire,  was  too  like  his  uncle 
Carloman,  who  had  retired  from  the  world,  than  his  father 
Charles,  who  had  remained  in  it  to  create  for  himself  the  em- 
pire of  the  West.  But  Louis  would  have  needed  even  greater 
abilities  to  hold  the  Empire  together  than  his  father  had 
shown  in  calling  it  into  being.  The  Empire  one  and  indivisible 
was  a  Roman  conception,  foreign  to  the  ideas  of  the  Teutonic 
family  into  whose  hands  it  had  fallen.  The  tendency  of  the 
Germanic  peoples  was  to  divide  the  imperial  inheritance  into 
practically  independent  principalities;  and  each  king  desired 
to  bestow  his  dominions  among  his  sons.  The  Church,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  administered  by  men  imbued  with  the  Roman 
traditions  of  solidarity.  Curiously  enough  the  great  ecclesi- 
astics of  the  newly  constituted  Empire  were,  as  far  as  their 
secular  ambitions  were  concerned,  as  ready  to  split  into  fac- 
tions and  parties  as  their  countrymen;  but  as  clergy  they  were 
drawn  together  by  a  strong  sense  of  the  essential  unity  of  the 

Church.  1 

The  reign  of  Louis  the  Pious,  814-855,  is  the  record  of  the 
endeavours  of  a  virtuous  monarch  to  hold  together  a  distracted 


THE  SO-CALLED   DARK  AGES  59 

empire  by  justice  and  mercy,  in  an  age  which  demanded 
firm,  and  even  ruthless  methods.  Louis  was  an  indulgent  father, 
when  it  was  indispensable  for  him  as  the  head  of  the  imperial 
family  to  be  a  tyrant.  He  was  conscientious  rather  than  priest- 
ridden;  and  one  act  of  his  gave  a  precedent  to  the  first  King  of 
Prussia  and  to  Napoleon.  On  the  death  of  his  brothers,  in 
the  presence  of  his  father,  he  entered  the  cathedral  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  and  taking  the  crown  from  the  altar  placed  it  on  his 
own  head,  whilst  the  assembled  courtiers  and  bishops  shouted, 
"Fivat  Imperator  Ludovicus :"  According  to  another  version, 
however,  it  was  Charles  who  crowned  his  son.  This  was  in  813; 
in  816  Stephen  IV  crowned  Louis  again  at  Rheims.  At  the  two 
diets  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  in  814  and  817,  the  Emperor  showed 
himself  a  stern  and  vigorous  reformer  of  the  Church.  The 
strength  of  the  Empire  and  the  weakness  of  the  Roman 
Church  was  also  shown  in  the  disorders  which  broke  out  when 
the  news  of  the  death  of  Charles  the  Great  reached  the  city. 
Leo  Ill's  long  pontificate  and  his  profuse  expenditure  on  the 
churches  of  Rome  had  apparently  not  endeared  him  to  his 
people;  and  in  814  he  was  threatened  by  a  conspiracy  similar 
to  that  of  Paschalis  and  Campulus  in  798,  and  Louis  was 
apprised  of  the  Pope's  unpopularity,  as  his  father  had  been 
sixteen  years  before.  Nor  did  any  pope  of  marked  eminence 
make  his  appearance  whilst  Louis  was  Emperor.  Neverthe- 
less, as  subsequent  events  reveal,  the  power  of  the  Roman  See 
was  steadily  increasing  as  that  of  the  Empire  dissolved. 

The  historical  details  of  the  decay  of  the  vast  system  built 
up  by  the  genius  of  Charles  the  Great  are  of  little  interest  to 
any  but  the  professional  student  of  the  period.  The  changes 
in  the  map  of  Europe  during  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries 
are  kaleidoscopic  and  bewildering,  and,  even  to  some  who  are 
tolerably  well  informed  in  general  history,  the  numerous  Lo- 
thairs,  Pippins,  Charles,  and  Louises  of  the  Carolingian  House 
are  but  names.  But  in  this  chaos  of  conflicting  monarchs, 
rendered  darker  by  the  invading  Northmen,  Hungarians,  and 
other  barbarians,  it  is  possible  to  discern  certain  elements  out 
of  which  modern  Europe  was  evolved.  In  the  first  place  the 


60  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Germanic  people  was  divided  into  two  great  nations  with  differ- 
ent ideals.  The  Western  Franks  or  French  formed  a  kingdom 
of  their  own  under  a  descendant  of  Charles  the  Great.  They 
occupied  the  territory  which  had  been  part  of  the  Empire  and 
had  never  completely  broken  with  the  Roman  tradition.  The 
shadows  of  the  old  Roman  municipalities  still  lingered  in  towns, 
shorn  of  their  former  splendour;  and,  as  France  came  into  being, 
Rome    revived.    Even   Teutonic   feudalism   was    powerless  to 
destroy  the  ancient  civilization  of  the  old  world.  Thus  France, 
divided  as  it  was  into  petty  principalities,  had  a  strong  cen- 
tripetal tendency;  and  when  the  last  vestiges  of  the  Carolingian 
family    disappeared   the  "Dukes   of  France,"  who   succeeded 
them,  steadily  drew  the  entire  country  into  a  united  whole; 
and  the  work  begun  by  Louis  the  Fat  in  the  twelfth  century 
was  completed  by  Louis  the  Great  in  the  seventeenth.  The 
Eastern  Franks,  whose  home  lay  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
ancient  Empire,  retained  the  imperial  heritage  of  Charles  the 
Great;  but,  with  the  splendid  title  of  Roman  Emperors,  the 
power  of  their  rulers  rested  on  less  solid  foundations  than  the 
Kings  of  France.  They  were  the  nominal  heads  of  the  Roman 
world,  but  neither  they  nor  their  people  were  animated  by  the 
Roman  spirit.  The  German  nation  as  distinguished  from  the 
French   were   centrifugal.   The   tendency   to   split   into   small 
principalities  increased  rather  than  diminished  as  time  went 
on,  and  by  the  time  that  France  had  become  a  coherent  whole 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  German  Empire  was  a  congeries 
of  independent  princedoms.  Herein  is  a  clue  to  many  a  prob- 
lem of  medieval  history.  France  reverted  to  the  system  and 
order  of  the  ancient  Empire,  and  arose  on  the  ashes  of  an  older 
civilization,  whilst    Germany    retained    much    of  the    ancient 
Teutonic  individualism,  and  never  truly  assimilated  the  ideals 
of  Rome,  whose  empire  it  claimed  to  continue. 

These  tendencies,  however,  were  invisible  in  the  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries,  and  society  was  becoming  more  and  more  in- 
fluenced by  what  we  term  the  feudal  system.  As,  with  the 
absence  of  strong  rulers,  the  imperial  theory  of  a  united 
Christian  world  became  less  and  less  practicable,  the  possi- 


THE   SO-CALLED   DARK  AGES  6 1 

bility  of  extensive  organization  vanished  owing  to  lack  of 
means  of  communication  and  of  the  circulation  of  wealth,  and 
something  had  to  be  devised  to  protect  society  from  dissolution. 
Feudalism  was  not  deliberately  devised  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  age.  It  was  developed,  perhaps  necessarily,  out  of 
the  chaotic  conditions  of  affairs,  as  the  inevitable  outcome 
of  the  failure  of  the  imperial  ideal  of  Charles  and  his  Roman 
advisers.  The  Teutonic  principle  of  dividing  the  dominions  of 
a  monarch  among  his  sons  led  to  the  creation  of  an  increasing 
number  of  petty  kingdoms;  and  the  individualism,  so  strong 
among  the  Germanic  peoples,  caused  every  chieftain  to  de- 
velop into  an  independent  ruler  of  his  own  domain.  Nor  was 
the  feudal  system  entirely  Teutonic  in  origin;  for  the  Romans 
were  familiar  with  the  practice  of  one  man  putting  himself 
under  the  protection  of  another.  In  theory  the  feudal  idea  was 
that  the  strong  should  extend  protection  over  the  weak  in 
return  for  certain  service;  and  that  property  was  a  trust  to  be 
exercised  for  the  benefit  of  others.  This  was  the  source  of  the 
best  side  of  feudalism — chivalry,  the  protection  of  the  weak, 
and  the  virtues  of  knighthood.  But  few  signs  of  such  goodly 
fruit  were  manifested  in  the  Dark  Ages.  In  them  feudalism 
meant  the  substitution  of  the  baron's  castle  for  the  municipal- 
ity, internecine  strife  between  neighbours  in  place  of  a  society 
kept  at  peace  by  a  strong  external  authority,  and  the  tyran- 
nous caprice  of  an  individual  lord,  instead  of  the  supreme  law 
of  the  Empire.  But  perhaps  the  most  serious  blemish  of  early 
feudalism  was  that  its  petty  governments  were  not  based  on 
the  quasi-paternal  status  of  the  chief  of  a  clan,  but  on  the 
strength  of  an  aristocracy — really  a  more  vigorous  race — 
which  held  down  its  vassals,  often  the  descendants  of  the  old 
Roman  provincials,  and  forced  them  to  do  its  will.  It  was  prac- 
tically the  organized  rule  by  members  of  a  dominant  caste 
unchecked  by  public  opinion,  or  even  by  the  will  of  a  powerful 
sovereign.  Still,  with  all  its  evils,  feudalism  had  the  merit  of 
being  at  least  a  system,  and  was  better  than  the  anarchy  which 
had  prevailed  before  its  introduction.  Its  very  extension 
throughout  western  Europe  is  a  proof  of  its  necessity. 


62  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

The  Church  had  organized  herself  in  the  Roman  Empire 
under  the  influence  of  three  things:  (a)  Persecution,  (b)  law, 
and  (c)  the  civil  polity  of  the  Empire. 

(a)  From  the  day  of  their  complete  severance  from  Judaism 
the  Christians  had  uniformly  refused  to  place  their  religion 
under  the  protecting  aegis  of  the  Empire.  True  they  may  have 
secured  their  property  by  availing  themselves  of  the  laws  re- 
garding benefit  clubs  and  burial;  but  they  never  sought  the 
recognition  of  the  State.  Sooner  than  do  this,  they  preferred 
to  stand  completely  aloof  from  the  Caesar  worship  and  the 
admission  of  other  faiths,  which  to  them  would  have  been  the 
price  of  legal  toleration.  To  conserve  their  peculiar  position,  they 
readily  and  even  joyously  endured  persecution.  As  followers 
of  a  religion  constantly  exposed  to  attack  either  by  the  popu- 
lation or  the  government,  they  were  compelled  to  organize 
themselves  and  submit  to  a  discipline  almost  military  in  its 
severity.  The  Christians  became  the  soldiers,  the  Church,  the 
army  of  Christ;  the  clergy  acted  as  their  officers  in  the  war 
against  the  world.  Before  the  days  of  the  great  Diocletian  per- 
secution the  Church  had  become  engaged  in  a  direct  conflict 
with  the  entire  strength  of  the  Empire;  and  although  its  re- 
sistance was  passive,  it  was  disciplined.  Irregular  martyrdom 
was  as  firmly  discountenanced  as  guerilla  warfare  among  or- 
ganized troops;  and  recognition  as  a  martyr  could  only  be 
won  with  the  approval  of  the  bishops,  the  leaders  of  the  cam- 
paign. It  is  not  without  significance  that  in  the  early  days  of 
the  second  century  the  strongest  advocate  of  submission  to 
the  bishop  and  his  council  of  priests  and  deacons  was  the 
martyr  bishop,  Ignatius.  Even  after  persecution  had  ceased, 
its  influence  continued,  and  the  Church  remained  an  inde- 
pendent army,  at  war  with  the  world.  However  arbitrary, 
therefore,  the  imperial  authority  over  churchmen  might  be, 
especially  in  the  East,  it  could  never  repress  their  strong  sense 
of  independence,  and  they  were  ready  to  brave  a  thousand 
deaths  in  defence  of  what  they  held  to  be  the  fundamentals 
of  the  Christian  faith.  But  if  the  clergy  were  at  times  sub- 
servient to  the  Emperor,  they  had  at  least  the  excuse  that  they 


THE   SO-CALLED   DARK  AGES  63 

believed  his  power  to  be  ordained  of  God.  Towards  no  "bar- 
barian" king  or  lord  could  they  have  any  such  feeling  of  rever- 
ence. Nay,  rather,  unless  he  proved  a  true  nursing  father  of 
the  Church,  it  was  their  duty  to  resist  him  in  the  name  of  hu- 
manity, and  of  civilization.  Thus  the  Church  as  a  restraining 
influence  in  days  of  anarchy  owed  her  strength  to  the  martyr 
spirit  engendered  by  her  long  contest  with  pagan  Rome. 

(b)  From  the  first  the  Church  had  claimed  and  exercised 
legislative  powers.  Beginning  with  the  apostolic  decree  of  the 
Council  of  Jerusalem,  a  scheme  of  legislation  had  developed 
comparable  to  that  of  the  Empire.  Christianity  proved  a  re- 
ligion attractive  to  the  Roman  lawyers,  who  gave  the  Church 
the  full  benefit  of  their  professional  experience.  Tertullian 
pleaded,  Cyprian  legislated,  and  Ambrose  administered  in 
accordance  with  the  traditions  they  had  received  at  the  bar 
and  on  the  bench.  The  Church  Councils,  which  made  laws  for 
Christians,  were  in  the  truest  sense  representative  bodies,  as 
the  bishops,  with  whom  the  final  decision  rested,  were  dele- 
gates solemnly  and  publicly  elected  to  represent  their  respec- 
tive churches.  In  later  times  it  is  true  election  became  increas- 
ingly less  common,  yet,  in  theory  at  least,  every  bishop  was 
supposed  to  represent  the  people  over  whom  he  presided. 

Whenever  a  Church  was  founded  among  a  barbarian 
people  the  clergy  introduced  the  Canon,  or  Church  law  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  insisted  upon  the  right  to  live  under  its 
provisions.  Compared  with  their  converts,  moreover,  they  were 
experts  in  legislation,  and  their  influence  is  seen  in  many  of  the 
barbarian  codes  which  were  drawn  up  in  the  different  kingdoms 
of  Europe.  The  conquered  provincials,  with  whom  the  clergy 
were  as  a  rule  in  sympathy,  were  often  allowed  to  live  as 
formerly  under  the  Roman  Law;  but  as  this  fell  for  a  time 
with  abeyance  in  the  Dark  Ages,  the  Canon  Law  survived  as 
its  best  representative. 

(c)  Even  before  the  Church  had  been  recognized  by  Con- 
stantine,  its  organization  had  begun  to  be  modelled  on  that  of 
the  Empire.  At  a  very  early  date  Rome,  the  Babylon  of  the 
Apocalypse,  had  become  the  capital  of  the   Christian  world, 


64  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

with  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  even  Carthage,  which  could 
claim  no  apostolic  founder,  as  the  chief  sees.  In  the  West  the 
Church  had  survived  the  Empire,  conserving  many  of  the  an- 
cient Roman  institutions,  with  a  sense  of  order,  and  the  claim 
to  represent,  not  a  single  people,  but  all  humanity.  It  stood 
indeed  for  the  ideal  of  the  Empire,  which  the  fall  of  the  Caro- 
lingian  dynasty  had  proved  incapable  of  practical  restoration. 

As  imperial  and  universal,  the  Church  stood  high  above 
the  principalities  of  the  Germanic  peoples,  as  representing 
the  civilization  of  the  past,  as  Roman  in  the  sense  of  being 
worldwide.  Even  if  we  regard  the  Church  as  no  more  than  a 
creation  of  human  origin,  it  was  yet  a  beacon  of  light  amid  the 
darkness  of  the  days  of  anarchy  and  disorder. 

But  the  Church  claimed  to  be  of  divine,  not  of  human,  in- 
stitution, nor  did  any  Christian  people,  however  barbarous,  or 
uneducated,  deny  this.  The  clergy  were  regarded  as  being 
trustees  of  supernatural  gifts  of  divine  grace.  They  dispensed 
the  sacraments  without  which  no  man  could  be  saved;  in  their 
hands  were  the  keys  of  heaven.  Those  whose  merits  had  won 
the  favour  of  heaven  wrought  signs  and  wonders,  they  could 
foretell  the  future,  they  had  a  share  in  the  counsels  of  God 
Himself.  In  times  of  plague,  of  pestilence,  of  famine,  their  aid 
was  indispensable.  Endowed  with  mysterious  gifts,  they  com- 
manded the  reverence  of  the  most  hardened  men  in  the  crises 
of  their  lives.  But  for  them,  it  was  believed,  the  powers  of 
evil  would  engulf  the  world. 

But  their  influence  rested  on  other  foundations  than  those 
of  superstitious  dread  or  selfish  hope.  Christianity,  though 
doubtless  corrupted  from  its  original  purity,  was  still  a  constant 
protest  against  unrighteousness.  The  Christian  religion  never 
ceased  to  extol  the  merit  of  charity  to  the  poor;  and  as  monas- 
ticism  grew  in  strength  poverty  acquired  an  additional  merit 
in  men's  eyes.  There  never  was  a  time  at  which  the  Christian 
conscience  was  perfectly  at  ease  on  the  question  of  slavery; 
and  the  clergy  proved  a  barrier,  though  at  times  but  a  feeble 
one,  against  feudal  oppression.  Above  all,  however,  Chris- 
tianity was  a  religion  of  hope.  Miserable  as  the  world  was,  at 


THE   SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  65 

least  the  Church  offered  the  hope  of  redress  in  the  world  to 
come,  and  the  happiness  of  heaven  to  those  who  knew  of  none 
on  earth.  The  Church,  therefore,  was  the  only  institution 
from  which  any  hope  of  a  regenerated  world  could  be 
expected. 

The  Dark  Ages  would  undoubtedly  have  witnessed  the 
annihilation  of  letters  but  for  the  Church.  It  is  easy  to  point 
the  finger  of  scorn  at  the  ignorance  of  the  western  clergy  in  the 
ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  their  boundless  credulity,  their 
atrocious  Latinity,  the  modicum  of  knowledge,  mostly  in- 
correct, which  passed  for  learning.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  but  for  them  there  would  have  been  no  learning  at  all, 
and  probably  not  so  much  as  a  language  would  have  survived 
to  conserve  the  traditions,  even  of  paganism,  without  the 
labours  of  the  monk  and  missionary. 

In  addition  to  this,  without  theology  and  the  need  of  in- 
structing the  people  in  at  least  the  rudiments  of  the  Faith,  the 
human  mind  would  have  had  little  mental  sustenance.  Even  in 
conserving  the  Faith  a  demand  was  made  on  the  reflective 
faculties.  Thus  after  fully  admitting  the  failures  of  the  Church 
and  its  degradation,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  it  stood 
alone  as  representing  civilization  in  a  time  when  the  future 
progress  of  humanity  appeared  almost  unthinkable. 

As,  however,  the  Church  had  become  imperialized  in  the 
days  of  the  Empire  and  continued  to  be  so  in  the  East,  so  now 
in  the  West  it  could  not  escape  the  influence  of  feudalism. 
Although  on  principle  opposed  to  class  distinction,  though  in 
the  past  slaves  had  been  honoured  as  martyrs,  and  respected 
as  bishops,  under  Germanic  influence,  birth  became  more  and 
more  an  essential  qualification  for  high  office  in  the  Church. 
Still  the  poor  sought  and  obtained  ordination,  for  the  strength 
of  the  Church  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  opened  its  doors  to  piety 
and  ability  without  respect  of  persons;  but  the  legislation  of 
the  time  tended  to  keep  the  bondman  and  tiller  of  the  soil  out 
of  the  priesthood,  and  the  ecclesiastical  writers  are  never 
weary  of  denouncing  the  sin  of  the  King  of  Israel  who  made 
priests  of  the  lowest  of  the  people.  As  the  power  and  wealth 


66  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  bishops  increased,  the  office  was  entrusted  to  men  of 
noble  birth  who  tended  to  become  feudatories  of  the  Empire, 
and  even  independent  rulers  rather  than  pastors  of  their 
flocks.  In  the  wars  and  feuds,  which  embittered  the  reign  of 
Louis  the  Pious,  at  least  as  many  bishops  as  counts  played  a 
prominent  part;  and  this  continued  for  several  centuries. 
Already  the  princely  prelates  of  Germany  had  taken  their 
place  among  the  secular  princes  of  the  Western  Empire,  al- 
ready the  Pope  of  Rome  had  become  a  sovereign,  who  claimed 
to  sit  with  the  Emperor  on  the  throne  of  the  world. 

Such  then  was  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  Christian 
Church  when  the  darkness  lay  thickest  over  the  Western 
world.  When  we  transport  ourselves  to  the  East  from  "old" 
Rome  to  the  "new"  Rome  of  Constantinople  things  are  differ- 
ent; and  it  would  have  been  hard  indeed  for  a  subject,  say  of 
Charles  the  Fat,  who  visited  the  Byzantine  court,  to  believe 
that  the  hope  of  civilization  would  be  realized,  not  on  the  shores 
of  the  Bosphorus,  but  in  the  dominion  of  his  master.  Constanti- 
nople was  the  one  great  city  of  Europe,  not,  like  Rome,  a 
congeries  of  deserted  streets  and  buildings,  the  dead  memorials 
of  a  great  past,  but  a  place  teeming  with  a  vast  population, 
the  emporium  of  the  trade  of  the  world.  The  Romans,  as  her 
Greek-speaking  inhabitants  called  themselves,  were  still  the 
most  powerful  nation  on  earth;  their  army  was  drilled  and  dis- 
ciplined to  be  more  than  a  match  even  of  the  armies  of  the 
Crescent;  their  navy,  manned  by  excellent  sailors  and  ren- 
dered the  more  formidable  by  Greek  fire,  which  was  discharged 
from  a  sort  of  cannon,  protected  a  worldwide  trade.  Nor  was 
there  any  justification  for  the  view  that  Byzantine  Rome  was 
decadent.  Before  her  were  generations,  capable  of  producing 
great  emperors,  soldiers,  statesmen,  and  she  was  long  destined 
to  remain  the  chief  bulwark  of  Christendom.  Bulgarians  and 
Russians,  as  well  as  Saracens,  had  retreated  and  would  still 
retreat,  baffled  and  defeated,  from  her  walls.  Her  coinage 
circulated  alike  in  Europe  and  Asia.  Her  churches  were  the 
admiration  of  the  world;  but  Constantinople  was  not  like  Old 
Rome,   a  city  of  churches   and   monasteries.   Palaces,   baths, 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  67 

libraries,  schools,  occupied  the  city,  her  shops  were  filled  with 
wares  and  her  quays  with  merchandise.  In  every  respect  the 
Empire  of  the  East  had  the  advantage  over  the  chaotic,  newly 
created,  imperial  system  of  western  Europe.  By  the  light  of 
these  facts  it  is  possible  to  understand  some  typical  examples 
of  events  in  the  Dark  Ages. 

An  immense  stride  was  taken  in  the  assertion  of  the  su- 
preme power  of  the  papacy  by  Nicolas  I,  one  of  the  few  pontiffs 
honoured  by  posterity  with  the  title  of  "the  Great."  His  com- 
paratively brief  pontificate  (A.D.  858-867)  is  memorable  for 
four  things:  (1)  his  defiance  of  the  Eastern  Emperor  in  defence 
of  the  wrong  done  to  Ignatius,  the  deposed  patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople; (2)  his  firm  stand  for  the  sanctity  of  marriage 
against  Lothair,  King  of  Lorraine;  (3)  his  breaking  the  pride  of 
the  great  prelates  of  Gaul;  (4)  the  appearance  of  those  remark- 
able documents  in  support  of  the  worldwide  authority  of  the 
Pope  known  as  the  "False  Decretals." 

(1)  The  splendid  position  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  as 
contrasted  with  that  of  the  Bishop  of  Old  Rome,  the  fact  that 
next  to  the  Emperor  he  was  the  greatest  man  in  a  rich  and 
flourishing  empire,  the  head  of  a  church  equally  renowned  for 
its  learning  and  magnificence,  was  neutralized  in  a  measure  by 
the  insecurity  of  his  position  in  a  corrupt  and  despotic  court. 
With  all  his  advantages  the  Patriarch  was  always  a  subject, 
whilst  the  Pope  was  becoming  more  and  more  of  an  independ- 
ent sovereign.  Moreover,  though  more  than  one  Pope  was 
destined  to  bring  discredit  on  the  Church,  Rome  afforded 
scope  for  men  of  commanding  intellect  and  high  moral  charac- 
ter; and  these  were  enabled  to  make  a  firmer  stand  for  right- 
eousness than  any  Patriarch  since  the  days  of  Chrysostom. 
There  is  abundant  evidence  of  this  in  the  story  of  the  See  of 
Constantinople  in  the  ninth  century.  Leo  V  summoned  a  coun- 
cil in  815,  and  deposed  the  patriarch  Nicephorus,  the  historian, 
for  refusing  to  agree  to  the  Emperor's  iconoclastic  policy.  In 
842  John  VII,  the  grammarian,  the  wonder  of  his  age  for  his 
learning  and  mechanical  knowledge,  was  deposed,  scourged 
and  blinded  by  the  image  worshippers;  and  in  857  Michael 


68  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

III,  the  Drunkard,  deposed  the  saintly  Ignatius,  whose  story 
must  now  be  told. 

The  Patriarch  Methodius,  with  whose  aid  the  regent  Theo- 
dora, widow  of  Theophilus  and  mother  of  Michael  III,  had 
restored  the  images,  died  in  846;  and  the  two  candidates  for 
the  vacancy  were  both  sons  of  Emperors,  Gregory,  Bishop 
of  Syracuse,  of  Leo  the  Armenian,  whilst  Ignatius,  as  the  son 
of  Michael  I,  represented  the  family  which  his  rival's  father  had 
dethroned.  The  competitors  stood  for  different  aspects  of 
churchmanship.  In  Ignatius  the  virtues  of  St.  Theodore  of  the 
Studium  were  incarnate;  zeal  for  Rome,  for  images,  for  the 
independence  of  the  Church  were  combined  in  him  with  the 
asceticism  of  a  true  monk.  In  Gregory,  a  more  worldly  perhaps, 
a  more  liberal  Christianity  was  discoverable.  The  election  of 
Ignatius  was  the  victory  of  the  uncompromising  Church  party, 
favoured  by  Theodora,  which  inclined  towards  friendship  with 
the  Pope  of  old  Rome.  Ignatius  not  only  offended  Gregory  by 
supplanting  him,  but  refused  to  acknowledge  him  because  he 
had  been  accused  of  violating  the  canons  of  the  Church.  Thus 
there  was  a  party  formed  in  opposition  to  the  Patriarch,  a  man 
of  saintly  character,  but  probably  with  the  limitations  of  a 
narrow  monastic  training.  In  his  dispute  with  Gregory,  Igna- 
tius had  won  the  support  of  Pope  Benedict  III. 

For  eleven  years,  till  857,  Ignatius  occupied  his  throne  un- 
disturbed. His  position  was  no  easy  one  for  a  man  of  sensitive 
conscience.  Theodora  proved  herself  a  capable  ruler;  but  she 
entrusted  her  infant  son  Michael  to  his  uncle  Bardas,  a  man  of 
immoral  habits,  who  seems  to  have  deliberately  fostered  the 
evil  propensities  of  his  young  charge,  destined  to  be  known  to 
posterity  as  the  "the  Drunkard."  Theodora,  like  Irene  the 
earlier  restorer  of  the  images,  is  accused  of  encouraging  her 
son's  profligacy  to  prolong  her  power  as  regent,  though  she 
appears  to  have  ruled  wisely  and  well.  But  in  the  end  Bardas 
and  his  party  proved  too  strong  for  Theodora,  and  an  attempt 
was  made  to  force  her  and  the  Emperor's  sisters  to  enter 
a  monastery.  Ignatius  refused  to  be  an  accomplice  in  this  de- 
sign, urging  that  it  was  uncanonical  to  compel  unwilling  persons 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  69 

to  enter  religion.  This  made  him  a  definite  partisan  of  Theodora, 
and  opposed  to  Bardas. 

The  state  of  morality  at  this  time  at  Constantinople  was 
admittedly  deplorable.  The  young  Emperor  indulged  in  dis- 
graceful orgies  and  openly  made  a  mock  of  religion.  Bardas 
was  supposed  to  be  guilty  of  an  incestuous  passion  for  his  son's 
wife.  Theodora  had  married  her  son  at  the  age  of  sixteen  to  a 
lady  named  Eudocia,  whom  Michael  deserted  to  live  with 
another  of  the  same  name,  Eudocia  Ingerina.  At  the  feast  of 
Easter,  857,  Ignatius  refused  the  communion  to  Bardas.  A 
charge  of  sedition  was  trumped  up  against  the  patriarch  and 
he  was  exiled  to  Terebinthus  and  ordered  to  resign  his  see.  As 
he  remained  inflexible,  he  was  deposed. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  high  birth  and  reputation  for  sanctity 
which  Ignatius  enjoyed,  Bardas  wisely  selected  the  best  pos- 
sible successor  in  Photius,  chief  secretary  of  state,  whose  vast 
erudition  is  still  recognized  with  gratitude  by  modern  scholars. 
Himself  nobly  born,  the  grand-nephew  of  the  patriarch  Tarasius 
(A.D.  784-806),  and  allied  to  the  imperial  house,  Photius  com- 
bined the  wisdom  of  a  statesman  with  encyclopedic  learning, 
in  contrast  to  Ignatius,  who  was  at  heart  little  more  than  a 
devout  monk.  Indeed  it  is  related  that  Photius  had  promulgated 
opinions  ludicrously  heretical  in  order  to  show  the  world  the 
incompetence  of  the  Patriarch  Ignatius  when  there  was  an 
occasion  for  exhibiting  a  knowledge  of  philosophy.  Like  his 
grand-uncle  and  some  other  Patriarchs  at  the  time  of  his 
election  Photius  was  a  layman;  but  five  days  were  sufficient  to 
make  him  a  monk,  reader,  subdeacon,  deacon  and  priest,  and 
on  the  sixth,  December  25,  857,  he  was  consecrated  Archbishop 
of  Constantinople. 

There  is  a  modern  prejudice  in  favour  of  Photius,  but 
granted  even  that  Ignatius  was  narrow  and  ignorant,  a  sup- 
porter of  the  monastic  party  and  the  superstitious  Theodora, 
and  a  partisan  of  Rome,  and  admitting  that  Photius  adorned 
his  see  by  his  learning,  and  maintained  its  independence  against 
papal  arrogance,  nothing  can  conceal  the  fact  that  Ignatius  was 
deposed  unjustly,  and  no  attribution  of  motives  to  the  Pope 


70  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  Rome  in  espousing  his  cause  can  make  right  wrong.  The 
deposition  of  Ignatius  in  857  was  as  unjust  as  that  of  St.  John 
Chrysostom  four  and  a  half  centuries  earlier;  and  the  treat- 
ment of  Ignatius  by  his  opponents  was  indefensible,  though,  to 
do  Photius  justice,  he  protested  strongly  against  the  cruel  treat- 
ment of  some  of  his  rival's  adherents. 

What  follows  recalls  the  story  of  the  Latrocinium  in  449 
when  the  Patriarch   Flavian  was   deposed  in   defiance  of  St. 
Leo  the  Great.  Photius  laid  the  case  before  Nicolas  I.  A  council 
was  held   in   862   at  which  the  papal  legates  were  present, 
and  Ignatius  was  deposed  with  the  consent  of  the  Romans. 
Nicolas,  on  hearing  what  had  happened,  indignantly  repudiated 
the  action  of  his  representative,  and  held  a  council  at  Rome, 
where  Photius  was  excommunicated,  with  Zacharias,  the  papal 
legate,  and  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Syracuse.  All  the  ordinations  of 
Photius  were  declared  null   and  void,  and  the  three  Eastern 
Patriarchs  were  commanded  to    acknowledge    Ignatius.  Year 
after  year  the  controversy  continued.  Michael  tried  to  exert 
his  authority,  but  the  days  when  an  Eastern  Emperor  could 
dictate  to  a  Pope  were  ended.  Nicolas  taunts  Michael  with 
basely  allowing  his  dominions  to  be  overrun  by  Saracens,  whilst 
he  threatens  Catholic  Christians  with  the  vain  terrors  of  his 
arms.  The  Pope  threatened  that,  if  the  Emperor  persisted,  his 
letter  should  be  publicly  burned  in  Rome.  Photius,  whose  vir- 
tues seem  to  have  endeared  him  to  his  people,  held  a  council  in 
867   and   retorted  on  Nicolas  with   counter  anathemas.  The 
Latins  were  charged  with  heresy  in  eight  articles  drawn  up  by 
the  Patriarch:  I.  Fasting  on  Saturdays.  II.  Allowing  milk  and 
cheese   to   be   eaten   in   Lent.    III.    Insisting   on   compulsory 
celibacy  of  the  clergy.  IV.  Restricting  the  Chrism  (Confirma- 
tion) to  bishops.  V.  Saying  that  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeded 
from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  VI.  Promoting  deacons  direct  to 
the  episcopate.  VII.  Consecrating  a  lamb  according  to  Jewish 
usage.  VIII.  Shaving  the  beards  of  the  clergy.  Thus  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  Roman  and  the  Eastern  Church  was  em- 
phasised,   and    the   fatal    Filioque   controversy   brought    into 
prominence.  The  council  further  denied  the  papal  supremacy, 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  7 1 

declaring  that  all  the  privileges  of  Rome  had  passed  to  Con- 
stantinople. 

On  September  24,  867,  Michael  the  Drunkard  was  murdered 
by  his  colleague  Basil,  a  groom  whom  he  had  raised  to  the 
purple.  Photius  was  deposed  in  favour  of  Ignatius  who  pre- 
sided over  Constantinople  till  his  death  in  877.  But  even  Igna- 
tius could  not  avoid  disputes  with  Rome.  A  cause  of  dispute  be- 
tween the  sees  was  as  to  whose  jurisdiction  the  new  church  of 
Bulgaria  belonged.  At  Constantinople  Ignatius  was  evidently 
regarded  as  too  deferential  to  Old  Rome,  and  at  his  death 
Photius  was  restored,  this  time  without  serious  opposition  from 
John  VIII,  the  next  but  one  in  succession  to  Nicolas  I.  Once 
more,  in  886,  Photius  was  deposed,  but  he  was  allowed  to  retire 
with  honour.  After  the  Ignatian  controversy  the  relationship 
between  Rome  and  Constantinople  began  to  grow  less,  not  so 
much  on  account  of  ecclesiastical  difference  as  of  circumstances. 
But  the  seeds  of  disunion  were  sown.  Rome  had  asserted  and 
Constantinople  had  rejected  her  supremacy,  and  the  Easterns 
had  brought  against  the  Western  Church  the  charge  of  tam- 
pering with  the  Creed.  Rome  had,  however,  in  the  person  of 
Nicolas,  enhanced  her  prestige  by  espousing  the  cause  of  in- 
nocence and  showing  a  moral  tone  superior  to  that  of  the  more 
civilized  society  of  the  Eastern  Empire. 

(2)  The  pontificate  of  Nicolas  serves  further  to  illustrate  the 
power  gained  by  the  clergy  in  constituting  themselves  the  cus- 
todians of  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  bond.  The  extreme 
laxity  of  the  Carolingian  house  laid  them  open  to  ecclesiastical 
censures,  which  were  sometimes  prudently  withheld.  Nicolas 
was  not,  however,  restrained  by  caution,  especially  when,  as  in 
the  case  of  Ignatius,  the  oppressed  sought  his  aid.  The  Pope 
stood  alone  in  defence  of  an  injured  woman  against  a  king,  the 
Emperor,  and  the  entire  hierarchy  of  northern  Europe.  The 
whole  story  is  illustrative  of  the  low  morale  of  the  Carolingian 
age.  Lothair,  King  of  Lorraine,  brother  of  the  Emperor  Louis 
(850-875),  had  married  Teutberga,  daughter  of  Boso,  Count  of 
Burgundy.  Being  enamoured  of  a  lady  named  Waldrada,  he 
determined  to  rid  himself  of  his  wife  and  brought  against  her 


72  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

an  abominable  charge  of  misbehaviour  with  her  own  brother 
Hubert,  Abbot  of  St.   Maurice.  Teutberga  demanded  to  be 
tried  by  the  ordeal  of  hot  water,  and  her  champion  emerged 
unscathed.   But  the  judgment  of  heaven  did  not  satisfy  the 
bishops,  and  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  she  was  declared  guilty,  and 
Lothair  legally  married  to  Waldrada.  All  the  great  prelates 
supported  Lothair,  including  the  Archbishops  of  Cologne  and 
Treves,  and  Teutberga,  who  now  desired  no  more  than  to  retire 
into  a  convent,  was  forced  to  make  a  confession  of  her  guilt. 
An  appeal  was  made  to  Nicolas,  who  sent  legates  into  Germany. 
A  council  was  held  at  Metz  (862)  and  the  decrees  of  the  former 
synod  were  ratified  without  opposition  from  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Pope.  The  two  archbishops  went  boldly  to  Rome  as 
ambassadors  of  Lothair,  to  find  that  Nicolas  repudiated  the 
action  of  his  legates,  and  that  they  themselves  were  excom- 
municated and  deposed.  The  Emperor  Louis,  determined  to 
avenge  the  insult  to  his  brother,  advanced  on  Rome  to  seize 
the  person  of  the  Pope.  But  Nicolas  was  undaunted,  and  in  the 
end    Lothair    abandoned    his    episcopal    friends;    and    at    the 
Eighth  General  Council  in  868  made  abject  submission  to  the 
next  pontiff,  Hadrian  II. 

(3)  Even  the  greatest  prelate  among  the  Franks,  Hincmar  of 
Reims,  had  to  bow  to  the  imperious  will  of  Nicolas.  Hincmar 
was  the  greatest  of  the  northern  bishops,  famed  alike  for  his 
learning  and  character.  His  dispute  with  Nicolas  was  due  to  an 
appeal  to  Rome  by  Bishop  Rothad  of  Soissons,  whom  Hincmar 
had  deprived  of  his  see.  Nicolas  insisted  on  his  restoration  and 
rebuked  Hincmar  for  presuming  to  deprive  a  bishop  without 
consulting  Rome.  Indeed  he  lost  no  opportunity  of  asserting 
the  paramount  authority  of  the  Apostolic  See  over  all  bishops. 
But  though  he  extorted  submission  from  Hincmar,  Nicolas  rec- 
ognized his  eminent  qualities  and  respected  him  for  his  ability. 

Nothing  can  be  more  unjust  than  to  judge  a  man  by  the 
results  of  actions  which  took  generations  to  mature.  True,  the 
high-handed  manner  in  which  Nicolas  treated  Photius,  and  his 
contemptuous  letters  to  the  Emperor  Michael  III  did  much  to 
alienate  the  Eastern  Church;  but  at  least  it  must  be  admitted 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  73 

that,  however  disastrous  its  effects,  his  conduct  was  justified 
at  the  time.  Nor  can  the  Pope  justly  be  made  responsible  for 
the  fact  that  his  firmness  in  the  cause  of  an  injured  prelate  in  860 
was  partly  the  cause  of  a  schism  which  came  to  a  head  in  1054. 
He  may  more  reasonably  be  charged  with  excessive  arrogance 
in  asserting  the  claims  of  Rome,  and  of  haughtiness  in  his 
treatment  of  the  northern  bishops.  Yet,  when  his  times  are 
considered,  and  the  character  of  most  of  the  prelates,  imperious 
language  may  be  pardoned  in  even  a  Christian  pontiff.  Hard 
words  are  at  least  better  than  violent  deeds,  and  Nicolas  con- 
fined himself  to  the  spiritual  weapon  of  severe  reproof,  nor  did 
he  ever  encourage  violence  in  others.  Nor  could  his  age  have 
comprehended  a  gentler  Pontiff.  He  is  an  example  of  how  great 
a  power  for  good  a  Pope  could  be  who  dared  to  play  an  honest 
part  in  days  of  social  and  moral  anarchy.  It  has  been  necessary 
to  dwell  on  his  reign  because  in  it  the  highest  claims  of  Roman 
sovereignty  were  made,  and  also  because  hardly  a  generation 
after  his  death  the  dreadful  condition  of  the  Papacy  and  the 
barbarism  of  Rome  proves  what  forces  of  evil  he  and  his  im- 
mediate successors  held  in  check. 

(4)  The  name  of  Nicolas  I  is  always  associated  with  the 
appearance  of  one  of  the  most  astonishing  forgeries  in  history, 
which  for  nearly  six  centuries  after  his  death  exercised  unques- 
tioned authority  in  Western  Christendom.  Nor  can  anything 
illustrate  better  the  mental  condition  of  the  age  than  the  fa- 
mous "False  Decretals."  Fortunately  for  centuries  no  serious 
historian  has  attempted  to  defend  them,  and  they  can  be  dis- 
cussed without  offence  to  any  person  who  knows  the  facts.  It 
must,  however,  be  remembered  that  because  a  document  is  a 
forgery  or,  at  least,  not  what  it  professes  to  be,  it  is  not  on  that 
account  unimportant  to  the  historian.  On  the  contrary  it  may 
be  of  far  greater  value  than  a  genuine  production,  for  the  very 
fact  that  it  has  been  deliberately  manufactured  and  ascribed 
to  an  earlier  age  makes  it  of  great  value  in  estimating  the  ideas 
of  the  time  at  which  it  was  fabricated.  It  matters  therefore  little 
whether  the  decrees  ascribed  to  Popes  Pius  I  or  Melchiades 
were  promulgated  by  them  in  comparison  with  the  fact  that 


74  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

in  the  ninth  century  they  were  deemed  of  sufficient  importance 
to  be  attributed  to  those  venerable  names.  That  the  False  De- 
cretals laboured  to  prove  that  in  every  age  popes  had  legis- 
lated for  the  Church  is  in  itself  a  proof  that  at  the  time  of  their 
reception  it  was  generally  admitted  or  at  any  rate  desired. 

The  Decretals  are  really  a  book  of  Church  law,  not  the 
Canon  law  promulgated  by  Councils,  but  decrees  issued  by 
successive  pontiffs  as  Bishops  of  Rome.  They  foreshadow  what 
has  finally  been  accepted  only  a  generation  or  so  ago,  namely 
that  the  edict  of  a  Pope  ranks  with  the  decree  even  of  a  General 
Council.  Nothing  can  be  more  misleading  than  the  notion  that 
these  Decretals  were  promulgated  by  Nicolas  to  exalt  the 
importance  of  his  office.  It  is  tolerably  certain  that  till  within 
the  last  years  of  his  pontificate  he  knew  nothing  about  them, 
and  it  is  an  open  question  whether  he  ever  used  them.  On  the 
contrary  it  has  been  established  that  the  forgery  was  not  even 
Roman.  The  group  of  ecclesiastics  who  wished  it  to  be  true 
lived  beyond  the  Alps,  and  therefore  the  fraud  they  perpetrated 
was  to  secure  the  papal  authority  in  their  own  interests  rather 
than  for  the  benefit  of  the  Roman  See.  The  successors  of  Nicolas 
do  not  seem  to  have  brought  them  into  prominence  till  the 
pontificate  of  Bruno  of  Toul,  a  German  who  took  the  title  of 
Leo  IX  in  1048. 

The  nucleus  from  which  the  False  Decretals  grew  was  a 
collection  of  letters  or  edicts  of  the  popes  commencing  with 
Siricius  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  This  was  made  by 
Dionysius  Exiguus  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  and 
in  the  next  century  the  famous  Isidore  of  Seville  published  a 
collection  of  the  decrees  of  the  authentic  councils.  In  the  ninth 
century  spurious  collections  began  to  make  their  appearance 
in  Gaul,  first  the  Capitula  Jngilramni,  some  seventy  short 
chapters  dealing  with  ecclesiastical  questions,  professedly  given 
by  Hadrian  I  to  Angelramn,  Bishop  of  Metz,  or,  according  to 
some  copies,  by  the  Bishop,  to  Hadrian.  Next  Benedict  Levita 
issued  Capitularies,  which  he  said  were  drawn  up  from  the 
archives  of  the  archdiocese  of  Mainz.  These  were  followed  by 
the  Decretals  themselves  by  Isidore  Mercator  (or  Peccator), 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  75 

who  was  popularly  confused  with  Isidore  of  Seville.  Hence 
they  are  often  called  the  "Isidorian  Decretals."  These  were 
drawn  up  at  the  request  of  the  bishops  and  fall  into  three 
parts:  I.  The  Apostolic  Canons,  some  sixty-four  Decretals 
from  Clement  of  Rome  to  Melchiades  (314),  and  the  Donation 
of  Constantine.  II.  Decrees  of  Councils  from  Nicaea  to  the 
Second  Council  of  Seville  (619).  III.  Decretals  of  Popes  from 
Silvester  to  Gregory  II.  These  were  alluded  to  in  the  Frankish 
Councils  of  Soissons  (853)  and  definitely  cited  at  Quiercy  (857), 
Fimes  (881),  and  Metz  (857),  and  the  founders  of  the  Canon 
Law  in  France  speedily  adopted  then.  Whether,  therefore, 
Nicolas  I  used  them,  is  here  unimportant,  especially  as  the 
question  is  both  complicated  and  controversial,  the  point  for 
the  present  being  that  the  Decretals  are  a  proof  that,  so  far 
from  there  being  a  spirit  of  Gallicanism  abroad  among  the 
majority  of  the  clergy  north  of  the  Alps,  there  was  a  strong 
desire  to  strengthen  the  papal  authority,  possibly  against  the 
encroachment  of  the  tyranny  of  the  great  feudal  archbishops. 
The  need  of  a  strong  central  rule  was  generally  felt,  and  the 
moral  superiority  of  the  Roman  bishops  was  widely  recognized, 
at  any  rate  in  the  days  of  Nicolas  and  his  two  successors  Ha- 
drian II  (867-872)  and  John  VIII  (872-882).  Even  in  the  darkest 
days  of  papal  degradation  the  reverence  for  the  office  survived 
in  a  surprising  manner  outside  Italy. 

II.  From  Ireland  and  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  to  Carthage, 
which  is  from  time  to  time  mentioned  as  a  Christian  Church 
even  in  the  tenth  century,  Latin  was  the  language  of  devotion. 
It  is  from  Latin  Chronicles  and  Charters  that  we  glean  the 
scanty  records  of  the  Dark  Ages,  nor  were  they  entirely  desti- 
tute of  literature  which  has  endured  to  this  day;  and,  if  cor- 
rupt, Latin  was  assuredly  a  living  language.  The  classical 
model  on  which  pure  Latinity  is  based  was  probably  never 
adopted  by  the  people,  and  the  Church  deliberately  used  the 
popular  dialect  for  the  edification  of  their  flocks.  Thus  the 
strong  common  sense  of  Gregory  the  Great  is  shown  in  his  re- 
fusal to  attempt  to  follow  the  rules  of  the  grammarians  in  his 
writings,  his  object  being  to  make  himself  clear  and  intelligible. 


76  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

His  namesake  and  contemporary,  Gregory  of  Tours,  was  even 
more  reckless  in  his  disregard  of  form  and  accidence,  yet  his 
story  is  most  readable.  In  Italy  and  Gaul  the  sermo  plebeius 
(to  use  Tertullian's  phrase)  was  in  process  of  formation,  and 
enabled  Latin  to  hold  its  own  as  the  ecclesiastical  language, 
and  also  to  be  the  common  vehicle  for  the  interchange  of 
ideas.  Nor  does  there  appear  to  have  been  the  slightest 
desire  for  a  language  intelligible  to  the  people  in  the  services 
of  the  Church.  The  Mass  was  becoming  more  and  more  the 
affair  of  the  priest,  with  the  congregation  adoring  in  silence,  and 
perhaps  in  ignorance.  Nor  did  severance  from  Rome  and  Italy 
break  the  ecclesiastical  employment  of  Latin.  Indeed  neither 
in  Wales  nor  Ireland  did  it  ever  fall  out  of  use.  This  fact  was  of 
immense  service  in  maintaining  a  bond  of  union  throughout 
Christendom.  The  rapid  disappearance  of  Greek  in  Rome  and 
throughout  northern  Italy  is  as  remarkable  as  the  universal 
retention  of  Latin,  especially  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  till 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  the  Byzantine  Greeks  were 
rulers  in  Rome.  Ireland  seems  to  have  been  the  one  home  of 
the  study  of  Greek  in  the  Western  Church.  The  monks  were  by 
no  means  friendly  to  the  classical  authors,  and  read  them  with 
misgivings;  nevertheless  they  preserved  them. 

The  Roman  Law  survived  in  compilations  among  some  of 
the  barbarians,  but  was  not  studied  in  its  integrity,  and  re- 
mained in  a  measure  the  law  of  the  provincials  in  parts  of  the 
Empire  under  Germanic  sway:  for  each  conquering  nation  car- 
ried with  it  its  own  laws  and  customs.  The  Church's  part  in 
continuing  the  tradition  of  the  Roman  Law  partly  consisted 
in  its  embodying  in  the  Canon  Law  all  the  legislation  affecting 
the  Church  of  the  Emperors  since  the  days  of  Constantine. 
But  the  important  fact  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  that  the  Church 
and  the  Church  alone  conserved  the  two  elements  which  it  had 
received  from  the  Empire,  language  and  law,  and  by  so  doing 
made  a  recrudescence  of  civilization  possible. 

III.  The  necessity  of  maintaining  the  doctrines  of  the 
Christian  faith  unimpaired  led  to  the  stimulation  of  some  in- 
tellectual  interest,    and  controversies  may  be   cited    as   giv- 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  77 

ing  indication  of  mental  activity.  The  Monothelite  heresy, 
which  turned  on  the  mysterious  question  of  whether  in  Christ 
the  divine  and  human  energy  operated  separately  or  in  one 
Will,  had  to  be  explained  to  and  repudiated  by  the  British 
Church  in  the  seventh  century.  The  Frankish  Church  was 
deeply  moved  by  the  heresy  of  Elipandus  of  Toledo  concerning 
the  Adoption  of  the  Son,  an  error  which  arose  in  the  West,  and 
employed  a  characteristically  Latin  notion.  For  the  ninth  cen- 
tury the  question  of  predestination  was  raised  by  Gotteschalk 
who  adopted  extreme  Augustinian  views  which  were  not  con- 
sonant with  the  growing  ecclesiasticism  of  the  age.  There  was 
in  addition  the  Filioque  controversy  about  the  procession  of 
the  Holy  Spirit;  and  the  Westerns  were  beginning  to  defend 
their  unauthorized  addition  to  the  Creed  of  the  Universal 
Church.  But  more  important  than  any  of  these  was  the  in- 
terest taken  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist.  Already  the  two 
views  of  the  change  in  the  Elements  by  which  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christ  were  given  to  the  Church  were  a  cause  of  divi- 
sion. Ratramnus,  following  John  Scotus  Eriugena,  favoured  the 
Augustinian  opinion  as  to  the  importance  of  faith  in  the 
recipient,  and  was  opposed  by  Paschasius  Radbert  who  main- 
tained the  more  popular  explanation  that  the  change  was 
wrought  by  a  miracle  performed  by  the  consecrating  priest. 
The  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  originating  in  the  Eastern 
Church  from  the  days  of  St.  Basil  and  the  Cappadocian  Fathers 
and  further  developed  by  St.  John  of  Damascus,  was  in  process 
of  formation.  Already  a  feeling  was  manifested  that  the  mystery 
was  profaned  by  extreme  literalism  in  explanation,  and  the 
way  was  being  prepared  for  the  development  of  an  interpreta- 
tion more  in  accordance  with  the  philosophy  of  the  time.  When 
all  the  troubles  of  the  ages  are  considered,  the  wonder  is,  not 
that  learning  sunk  so  low,  but  that  so  much  mental  activity 
was  possible:  for,  almost  unnoticed,  ideas  were  shaping  them- 
selves which  were  destined  to  materialise  in  the  wonderful 
civilization  of  Latin  Christendom,  which  was  destined  to  have 
so  many  permanent  effects.  It  is  but  just  to  apply  to  these  so- 
called  Dark  Ages  the  motto  Post  tenebras  lux. 


78  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

IV.  Even  greater  is  the  debt  due  to  the  men  of  this  sorely 
tried  generation  for  the  development  of  the  Christian  services  of 
devotion.  The  writers  of  the  Dark  Ages  made  verses  in  weari- 
some profusion,  some  bad,  some  tolerable,  hardly  any  poetical; 
and  almost  every  Pope  has  his  epithet  in  elegiacs.  But  side  by 
side  with  this  verse  making  was  a  development  of  a  new 
poetry.  What  classicism  is  found  in  Christian  writers  is  as  a 
rule  frigid  and  artificial;  but  the  devotion  of  the  Church  pro- 
vided a  language,  a  rhythm,  and  metres  all  its  own.  The  Chris- 
tian hymns  begin  to  appear  in  the  days  of  the  decay  of  Latin 
literature;  but  these  are  not  decadent:  they  are  the  vehicle  of 
new  thoughts,  new  emotions,  new  aspirations.  Among  the 
greatest  treasures  of  devotion  is  the  Breviary,  the  outcome  of 
the  monasticism  of  the  period.  Originally  the  devotion  of  the 
ascetic  was  the  Psalter;  but,  as  the  recitation  of  psalms  tended 
to  become  but  a  vain  repetition,  it  was  varied  by  lections  from 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  the  lives  of  Saints,  the  sermons 
of  fathers,  collects  and  anthems.  A  system  of  reasonable  wor- 
ship was  being  elaborated,  at  any  rate  for  the  cloister. 

By  the  end  of  the  ninth  century,  therefore,  the  papal 
authority  was  widely  recognised;  but,  with  the  disappearance 
of  the  Carolingians,  Rome  became  the  prey  to  barbarism  and 
disorder.  The  number  of  popes  in  a  century  is  an  almost  certain 
indication  of  the  state  of  Rome.  Thus  in  the  seventh  century 
twenty-one  pontiffs  were  elected;  in  the  eighth,  when  the  Caro- 
lingians were  rising  to  power,  twelve;  in  the  ninth  century,  the 
period  of  their  decay,  eleven;  in  the  days  of  anarchy,  between 
882  and  1046,  forty-one. 

A  long  and  dreary  period  has  now  to  be  considered,  during 
which  the  popes  at  times  sunk  to  almost  unimaginable  depths 
of  infamy,  though  in  the  end  the  Papacy  emerged  full  of  power 
to  establish  its  sway  over  the  whole  of  Western  Europe.  The 
painful  story  needs  only  to  be  briefly  told,  as  the  scandals  of 
the  Church  serve  no  end  but  to  prove  its  inherent  vitality. 
The  last  great  scion  of  the  Carolingians  was  Arnulf,  an  illegiti- 
mate son  of  Carloman,  King  of  Bavaria.  In  his  reign  over  Ger- 
many  (888-899)   some  of  the  vigour  of  Charles   the  Great 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  79 

appears.  He  more  than  once  invaded  Italy,  and  was  crowned  as 
Emperor  by  Formosus  in  896.  This  pope  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting in  the  list  of  obscure  pontiffs  of  the  age.  He  was  bishop 
of  Portus,  and  had  been  sent  as  a  missionary  to  the  Bulgarians 
where  he  was  in  high  favour  with  their  king  Boris.  His  election 
had  been  tumultuous  and  irregular,  for  it  was  contrary  to  all 
precedent  that  a  bishop  should  be  made  pope.  He  was  un- 
popular as  a  partisan  of  the  Germans,  and  at  his  death  an 
extraordinary  scene  was  enacted  illustrative  of  his  age.  Stephen 
VI,  his  successor,  had  his  body  exhumed.  Dressed  in  papal 
habiliments  the  corpse  was  accused  of,  as  bishop  of  Portus, 
usurping  the  Roman  See.  It  was  then  stripped  of  its  vestments, 
three  fingers  were  cut  off,  and  the  body  was  thrown  into  the 
Tiber.  Pope  Stephen  was  soon  afterwards  strangled  in  prison, 
and  under  the  brief  pontificate  of  Theodore  II  Formosus  was 
reinstated  and  buried  in  St.  Peter's.  As  the  body  was  carried 
into  the  Church,  the  images  reverentially  bowed  their  heads. 

After  Arnulf's  death  the  German  influence  in  Italy  became 
negligible,  and  the  Roman  See,  too  weak  to  maintain  itself, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  neighbouring  Counts  of  Tusculum. 
For  a  time  two  noble  but  immoral  ladies,  Theodora  and  her 
daughter  Marozia,  made  and  unmade  popes  at  their  pleasure. 
Into  the  bewildering  story  of  the  intrigues,  marriages  (often 
flagrantly  irregular),  murders,  and  other  crimes  of  the  princes 
of  this  age,  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter;  and  one  may  pass  on  to 
the  death  of  Alberic  who,  after  having  been  the  virtual  ruler  of 
Rome  for  twenty-two  years,  bequeathed  his  authority  to  his 
son  Octavian.  Two  years  after  his  father's  death  Octavian 
procured  his  election  as  pope,  thus  at  the  age  of  nineteen  be- 
coming head  of  the  Church  and  civil  ruler  of  the  City  (No- 
vember, 955)-  He  was  one  of  the  first  popes  to  change  his 
name  on  his  accession,  and  is  known  as  John  XII. 

The  condition  of  Europe  in  the  tenth  century  was  truly 
appalling.  On  all  sides  Northmen,  Slavonians,  Hungarians  were 
ravaging  the  country  whilst  there  seemed  grave  danger  of 
Italy,  and  Gaul,  being  submerged  under  the  flood  of  Mo- 
hammedanism.  Slowly   and   gradually  was  the  tide  turning, 


80  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

partly  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  fortified  feudal  castles  offered 
a  refuge  during  the  constant  raids  of  the  barbarians,  and 
also  to  the  vigour  shewn  by  the  Christian  mission.  Of  this 
age  it  may  truly  be  said  that  the  castle  and  the  monastery 
proved  the  salvation  of  the  embers  of  civilization.  The  rise 
of  a  strong  German  dynasty  contributed  to  this  end  when 
the  Dukes  of  Saxony  established  themselves  as  sovereigns. 
Henry  the  Fowler  (920-936)  and  his  son,  Otto  I,  defeated  the 
Danes,  Slavonians  and  Hungarians;  and  Otto  was  finally 
crowned  as  Emperor  at  Rome.  His  power  continued  under 
his  sons  and  namesakes  Otto  II  (978-983)  and  0tto  HI  (983- 
1002),  and  the  period  during  which  they  laboured  to  restrain 
the  disorders  of  Italy  and  restore  the  order  and  glory  of  Charles 
the  Great  is  often  known  as  the  "age  of  the  Ottos." 

The  rise  of  the  house  of  Saxony  in  Germany  gave  things 
a  turn  for  the  better,  but  it  was  only  temporary,  and  its  ex- 
tinction gave  further  proof  of  the  indispensable  need  of  the 
Roman  Church  for  the  support  of  a  strong  Emperor  living 
outside  Italy. 

John  XII  (955-963)  was  never  more  than  a  boy  during  his, 
for  this  century,  long  pontificate.  He  was  in  the  difficult  posi- 
tion of  a  Pope  with  an  hereditary'claim  to  rule  the  Romans,  and 
he  was  fitted  neither  by  his  character  nor  his  abilities  for  the 
task.  Accordingly,  in  961,  he  sought  the  aid  of  the  German  King, 
as  his  predecessors  had  summoned  Pippin  and  Charles  two 
centuries  before.  But  he  lacked  the  moral  dignity  of  the  second 
and  third  Gregories,  or  Zacharias.  He  has  been  described  as  a 
perfect  monster  of  iniquity,  but  his  chief  traducer  Liutprand, 
Bishop  of  Cremona,  delights  too  much  in  scandal  to  be  trusted 
implicitly.  But  after  making  every  allowance  for  John  XII, 
as  a  lad  placed  on  the  papal  throne  without  experience,  he 
seems  to  have  been  vicious  and  unprincipled,  totally  unfit  for 
the  humblest  clerical  office.  Otto  came  as  the  saviour  of  Europe 
and  the  reformer  of  the  Church.  He  delivered  the  Pope  from 
his  domestic  enemies,  but  insisted  upon  a  certain  decency 
being  maintained. 

The  Pope  was  denounced  by  the  clergy  to  the  Emperor. 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  8 1 

He  was  accused  of  turning  his  palace  into  a  brothel,  of  ordain- 
ing a  deacon  in  a  stable,  of  saying  Mass  without  himself  com- 
municating, of  simony,  of  consecrating  a  boy  of  ten  a  bishop, 
of  wearing  armour,  of  hunting  publicly,  of  calling  on  the  Demons 
Venus  and  Mercury,  when  playing  dice,  of  not  saying  Mass  or 
the  canonical  hours,  of  not  using  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  blessing 
himself,  and  of  arson.  The  strange  mixture  of  gross  sins  and 
trivial  offences  is  characteristic  of  the  age.  An  imperial  nominee 
was  consecrated  pope  as  Leo  VIII;  but  when  Otto  left  Rome, 
John  XII  called  a  rival  council  at  which  many  of  his  own 
accusers  were  present  and,  with  their  consent,  launched  counter 
anathemas  against  his  enemies. 

Less  than  two  years  after  John  XII's  death,  Otto  appointed 
John,  Bishop  of  Narni,  a  man  of  learning  and  experience, 
who  reigned  from  965  to  972.  By  him  Otto  I  was  crowned 
Emperor  on  Christmas  Day  967.  That  all  popes  of  this  century 
cannot  be  involved  in  one  general  condemnation  is  shewn  by 
John  XIII  who  was  known  as  "the  Good."  Otto  I  himself 
died  on  May  7,  973;  and,  as  illustrative  of  the  ferocity  of  the 
Romans,  when  the  strong  hand  of  the  emperor  was  removed, 
the  successor  of  John  XIII,  Benedict  VI,  was  murdered  within 
about  a  year.  Indeed  nothing  can  better  illustrate  the  insecurity 
of  the  popes  than  the  fact  that  between  955  and  985,  less  than 
thirty  years,  Benedict  V  died  in  exile  in  Germany,  Benedict 
VI  was  murdered,  John  XIV  died  in  prison,  and  his  rival 
Boniface  VII  was  supposed  to  have  been  poisoned,  and  his 
dead  body  was  certainly  foully  outraged.  Three  popes  only 
died  a  natural  death.  At  the  close  of  the  century  Otto  III  de- 
cided to  try  the  experiment  of  infusing  fresh  blood  into  Rome 
by  procuring  the  election  of  a  German  pope.  He  selected  a 
kinsman  of  his  own,  Bruno,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Carinthia,  a 
great-grandson  of  Otto  I.  This  pontiff  was  educated  at  Worms, 
and  he  was  able  to  preach  in  German  and  Italian — almost  the 
first  notice  of  the  language — as  well  as  in  Latin. 

But  Rome  could  not  tolerate  a  German  pope  and  an  at- 
tempt was  made  by  Crecentius,  perhaps  a  descendant  of  the 
famous  Marozia,  to  establish  a  Republic.  He  even  entered  into 


82  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

negotiations  with  Constantinople  to  place  Rome  in  the  hands 
of  the  Greeks  and  actually  selected  an  antipope,  John  Phila- 
gathus,  Bishop  of  Piacenza,  who  took  the  title  of  John  XVI. 
In  the  end  the  revolution  was  put  down.  The  terrible  fate  of 
the  antipope  again  lets  light  upon  the  barbarity  of  the  times. 
Those  who  arrested  him  "fearing  he  might  not  be  sufficiently 
punished,"  cut  off  his  nose  and  ears  and  plucked  out  his  eyes 
and  tongue.  In  this  awful  condition  he  was  dressed  in  his  vest- 
ments and  publicly  degraded.  The  Romans  then  put  him  on 
an  ass  with  his  face  to  the  tail  and  drove  it  through  the  city 
shouting,  "Thus  let  the  man  suffer  who  has  endeavoured  to 
drive  the  pope  from  his  See."  He  was  then  imprisoned  in  a 
monastery;  and  actually  lived  for  fourteen  years.  In  justice  to 
the  age,  S.  Nilus,  one  of  the  few  saints  of  the  time,  refused  to 
hold  further  intercourse  with  the  Emperor  who  had  allowed 
such  a  thing  to  happen.  The  next  German  pope  was  the  cele- 
brated Gerbert,  who  took  the  title  Sylvester  II,  implying  there- 
by that  he  and  the  emperor  would  restore  the  Church  like  Con- 
stantine  and  Sylvester  I.  But  Otto  III,  the  idealistic  youth 
who  had  hoped  to  do  so  much,  died  in  1002,  and  Sylvester  in 
the  following  year,  and  for  nearly  fifty  years  an  even  darker  day 
set  in  for  the  See  of  Rome. 

The  intervention  of  the  Ottos  had  been  powerless  to  raise 
the  Papacy  from  its  degradation;  for,  on  the  extinction  of  the 
Saxon  dynasty,  the  popes'  condition  was  worse  than  it  had  been 
before  its  intervention  in  Italy.  The  Chair  of  Peter,  in  fact, 
became  the  private  property  of  the  Counts  of  Tusculum, 
descendants,  like  so  many  others,  of  Marozia,  and  three  succes- 
sive memebers  of  this  family  occupied  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter. 
Two  of  them,  Benedict  VIII  (1012-1024)  and  John  XIX 
(1024-1033),  if  not  pious  bishops,  were  at  least  energetic  and 
capable  rulers;  but  the  third  may  safely  be  placed  among  the 
worst  of  the  popes.  Appointed  as  a  child  of  ten  or  twelve 
years  old  Benedict  IX  is  said  to  have  behaved  like  one  of  the 
more  monstrous  pagan  Emperors.  Wearied  by  his  infamies  the 
Romans  chose  an  antipope,  Sylvester  III;  and  in  1046  Benedict 
IX,  tired  of  his  office,  shamelessly  put  it  up  for  sale.The  purchaser 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  83 

was  the  arch-presbyter  John,  who  took  the  name  Gregory  VI, 
a  wealthy  man,  who  was  perhaps  guilty  of  a  wrong  act  with  not 
altogether  unworthy  motives.  At  any  rate  he  tried  to  recover 
the  papal  estates  for  the  See  and  to  repress  the  flagrant  robbery 
of  the  pilgrims  who  still  flocked  to  the  disorderly,  but  still 
holy,  city.  Benedict  IX's  family  did  not  acquiesce  in  his 
nefarious  bargain,  and  reinstated  him  as  pope,  and  Gregory 
from  St.  Peter's  denounced  his  rival  Benedict  in  the  Lateran. 
Thus  matters  stood  in  1048  when  the  Emperor  Henry  II  made 
Sylvester  III  a  prisoner  for  life  in  a  monastery,  and  forced 
Benedict  VIII  to  resign  all  his  claims  to  the  See.  Gregory  was 
also  deposed  and  taken  to  Germany  and  interned  in  a  mon- 
astery with  his  friend  Hildebrand,  destined  years  later  to  take 
the  name  of  the  simoniacal  pope,  and  to  wage  unrelenting  war 
against  the  sin  of  Simon  Magus. 

It  may  be  permissible  in  forming  a  judgment  of  this  disas- 
trous period  of  papal  history  to  utter  a  few  reminders.  (1) 
That  despite  all  the  scandals  of  the  time  the  papal  authority 
did  not  diminish.  Events  at  Rome  were  powerless  to  lessen  the 
respect  for  the  office.  Pilgrims  of  all  ranks  flocked  to  the  tombs 
of  the  apostles;  and  that  their  visit  to  Rome  did  not  always 
produce  merely  superstitious  reverence  is  shown  by  the  noble 
letter  of  Canute,  King  of  England,  who  was  actually  in  the  City 
in  the  days  of  the  Tusculan  Popes,  and  must  have  witnessed 
a  slaughter  of  the  Romans  by  the  German  troops  of  the  Em- 
peror Conrad  the  Salic.  But  in  a  letter  to  the  English  people 
the  king  expresses  his  sorrow  for  his  former  sins  and  exactions, 
and  promises  to  rule  them  in  future  more  justly,  showing  how 
deep  a  religious  impression  a  visit  to  the  City  had  made  on  his 
mind.  Doubtless  the  distant  nations  knew  little  of  what  went 
on  in  distant  Rome,  but  news  can  travel  far  and  fast  in  un- 
civilized lands,  and  the  worst  scandals  are  related  by  hostile 
ecclesiastics  or  prejudiced  pietists.  (2)  The  popes  are  rarely 
charged  with  gross  immorality,  and  a  John  XII  or  Benedict  IX 
are  the  exceptions,  not  the  rule.  On  the  whole,  the  popes  of  the 
Dark  Ages  were  more  sinned  against  than  sinning  as  the  num- 
ber who  were  murdered  abundantly  testify.  (3)  Their  corre- 


84  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

spondence  with  other  Churches  reveals  that  they  were  by  no 
means  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  Christianity  generally,  and 
(4)  they  are  in  no  instance  responsible,  as  were  some  at  a  later 
date,  of  stirring  up  strife  between  nations;  possibly  this  may 
be  due  to  lack  of  power,  but  the  fact  remains.  (5)  Even  in  the 
tenth  century  popes  like  Gregory  V  rebuked  the  sins  of  great 
men  like  Robert,  king  of  France. 

Finally  the  remarkable  revival  not  merely  of  papal  power 
but  of  religion  is  a  sure  proof  that  the  corruption  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  its  darkest  days  has  been  exaggerated.  When  an 
evil  age  succeeds  to  a  period  of  greatness  one  may  reasonably 
infer  that  the  seeds  the  bitter  fruit  of  which  the  next  genera- 
tion reaped  were  sown  when  all  seemed  fair  and  flourishing. 

Two  results  of  the  Dark  Ages  may  be  considered  in  con- 
clusion, (a)  The  Church  entered  them  semi-pagan  and  emerged 
wholly  Christian.  That  is  to  say  that,  as  the  literature  and 
culture  of  the  old  age  waned,  the  vigorous  Christian  body 
ceased  to  borrow  from  either,  and  developed  something  entirely 
its  own.  That  it  needed  to  be  again  leavened  by  the  older 
culture  is  undeniable;  but  it  set  men  on  the  track  of  founding 
a  society  on  a  basis  professedly  Christian.  This  distinguishes 
medieval  from  modern  civilization,  (b)  The  sufferings  of  the 
Roman  Church  at  the  hands  of  the  State  whether  Roman, 
Byzantine,  Gothic,  Lombard,  or  Italian,  made  an  ineradicable 
impression  on  the  Papacy.  From  the  time  of  its  revival  one 
idea  consistently  animated  the  institution — never  to  allow  the 
secular  power  to  dominate  it.  This  was  the  cause  of  the  furious 
fight  with  the  German  Roman  Emperors,  of  its  breaking  down 
any  attempt  to  unite  Italy  under  a  single  head,  of  war  with  a 
king  so  devoted  to  its  service  as  Philip  II  of  Spain.  In  recent 
times  it  has  shown  itself  in  its  hostility  to  Garibaldi,  Victor 
Emmanuel,  and  all  who  desired  to  make  Italy  one,  in  its  per- 
sistent determination  never  to  surrender  its  claim  to  temporal 
power,  in  its  readiness  to  support  any  nation  ready  to  encourage 
the  hope  that  the  popes  may  one  day  again  rule  central  Italy. 
So  enduring  has  been  the  terror  inspired  by  Leo  the  Isaurian, 
the  Lombard  kings,  the  rulers  of  Tuscany,  the  Counts  of  Tus- 


THE  SO-CALLED  DARK  AGES  85 

culum,  the  descendants  of  Theodora   and   Marozia.  To  this 
day  the  determination  of  the  Papacy  to  be  a  sovereign  power      J 
is  a  menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world.  / 

AUTHORITIES 

The  authorities  for  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Pious  are  the  Annals  of  Einhart. 
His  Life  by  Theganus,  Chorepiscopus  of  Treves  (c.  835)  in  Migne,  Patr.  Lat., 
Vol.  104,  and  The  Life  of  Wala,  the  famous  minister  of  the  Emperor,  by 
Paschasius  Radbert,  in  Migne,  P.  L.,  Vol.  120.  This  book  is  called  E pi- 
ta phium  Arsenii  and  the  names  in  it  are  fictitious.  The  clue  to  them  has 
been  supplied  by  Mabillon,  the  great  Benedictine.  The  book  is  hostile  to 
the  Emperor.  An  excellent  introduction  to  the  study  of  Feudalism  is  the 
article  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Vol.  10,  by  Professor  G.  B.  Adams 
of  Yale.  He  gives  a  good  bibliography,  referring  to  the  works  of  F.  W. 
Maitland,  J.  H.  Round,  P.  Vinogradoff,  Stubbs,  etc.  For  the  Pontificate  of 
Nicolas  I  the  main  authorities  is  his  Life  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis  (Duchesne, 
Vol.  II),  probably  written  by  the  librarian  Anastasius,  and  the  Pope's  letters, 
in  Migne,  P.  L.,  Vol.  119 — three  others  in  Vol.  129.  Milman,  Hist,  of  Latin 
Christianity,  Bk.  V,  Ch.  IV,  gives  a  good  account  of  his  pontificate.  Mann, 
Lives  of  the  Popes,  VoL  III,  should  be  consulted,  especially  the  bibliographies. 
The  works  of  Photius  are  in  Migne,  Patr.  Graec,  Vols.  101-105.  For  the 
controversy  see  A.  Fortescue,  The  Orthodox  Eastern  Church  (1907).  The 
best  edition  of  the  False  Decretals  is  P.  Hinschius  (Leipzig,  1863).  See 
Davenport,  The  False  Decretals  (Oxford,  1916). 

On  the  use  of  Latin  see  H.  0.  Taylor's  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  his  Medieval  Mind. 

The  Breviary  is  treated  of  in  the  articles  of  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia, 
'Breviary'  and  'Hymnody'.  The  account  of  the  Christian  Hymns  which  found 
their  way  into  the  Breviary  is  very  interesting.  From  Prudentius  and  Am- 
brose in  the  fourth  century  there  was  a  stream  of  Christian  poetry  in  all  the 
countries  of  the  West.  Perhaps  the  best  known  Hymns  of  the  Dark  Ages  are 
those  of  Venantius  Fortunatus,  Bishop  of  Poitiers  (fl.  600). 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    CHURCH    EMPIRE    OF   THE    WEST 

Loss  and  gain  of  the  Church  —  The  Church  a  reproduction  of  the  Empire  —  The 
Roman  —  Provinces  of  Gaul  —  Aries  —  Embrun   and  Aix  —  Narbonne  —  Auch 

—  Tarentaise  —  Vienne  —  Bourges  —  Besancon  —  Lyons  —  Sens  —  Treves  (Trier) 

—  Cologne  —  Reims  —  Rouen  Provinces  beyond  the  Rhine —  Mainz  —  Mag- 
deburg —  Hamburg  and  Bremen.  Vast  church  principalities  of  Germany. 
Northern  Italy  —  Milan  —  Ravenna  —  Patriarchate  of  Aquileia.  No  archbishops 
in  Central  Italy.  South  Italian  Archbishoprics.  Spain  —  Ancient  divisions  and 
sees  —  Toledo  —  Tarragona  —  Valentia  —  Saragossa  —  Granada  —  Elvira.  Por- 
tugal. England.  Scotland  and  Ireland.  Scandinavia  —  Conversion  of  the 
Northmen  —  Denmark  —  Lund  —  Trondheim  —  Conversion  of  Norway.  Con- 
version of  Eastern  Europe.  Conversion  of  the  Slavs  —  Cyril  and  Methodius  — 
Moravia  —  Bohemia.  Hungary.  Poland.  Germans  and  Slavs.  Russia.  Eastern 
Church  —  The  Patriarchates —  Primacy  of  Rome  —  The  Church  of  Rome  — 
Policy  of  Rome  during  the  Middle  Ages  —  The  Papal  Court  —  The  Cardinals 

—  The  Consistory  —  Legates. 

A  clue  to  the  understanding  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  found 
by  bearing  in  mind  that  the  Church  reproduced  and  continued 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  even  when  the  last  shadow  of  the  im- 
perial government  had  disappeared  the  ecclesiastical  provinces 
remained  virtually  the  same  as  the  ancient  civil  divisions  which 
had  existed  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  This,  as  will  be 
shown,  was  particularly  true  of  Roman  Gaul,  the  archbishop- 
rics of  which  from  the  eighth  century  onward  were  practically 
identical  with  the  provinces  in  the  days  of  Theodosius  the  Great, 
and  even  of  Diocletian.  In  the  East  the  same  phenomenon  is 
observable;  and  it  may  be  broadly  asserted  that  the  Church 
Empire  reproduced  that  of  Rome. 

The  enquiry  about  to  be  undertaken  may  be  tedious  but 
is  certainly  desirable.  To  survey  the  Christian  world  is  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  to  comprehending  the  course  of  events  during 
many  centuries.  The  Church  was  an  organization,  so  wide- 
spread, so  compact,  and  yet  so  complex,  that  the  policy  of 

86 


THE  CHURCH  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  87 

Europe  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  is  unintelligible  unless 
some  idea  is  prsented  as  to  its  divisions,  its  boundaries,  and  its 
government. 

The  Church  Empire  had,  on  the  one  hand,  shrunk,  and  on 
the  other  expanded  as  compared  with  the  imperial  dominions 
of  ancient  Rome.  At  the  time  of  the  coronation  of  Charles  the 
whole  southern  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  infidels;  and  Syria  and  the  East  were  no  longer  predom- 
inantly Christian.  On  the  other  hand  the  Church  was  extending 
its  frontiers  by  adding  Europe  east  of  the  Rhine,  and  north- 
ward to  the  Baltic.  The  time  was  not  far  off  when  Russia  and 
the  Scandinavian  lands  were  to  become  Christian.  There  had 
also  long  been  a  vigorous  thrust  of  missionary  effort  eastward, 
and  the  Gospel  had  been  carried  as  far  as  China.  Even  the 
inrush  of  the  Mohammedans  did  not  check  the  expansive 
power  of  Christianity,  which  in  the  darkest  days  of  civiliza- 
tion was  a  successful  missionary  religion;  though  from  the 
twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  century  the  territory  occupied  by  it 
seemed  to  recede  rather  than  to  advance. 

In  the  present  chapter  special  attention  will  be  devoted 
to  the  Church  of  Western  Europe,  first  within,  then  outside 
the  ancient  limits  of  the  Roman  Empire.  To  describe  the  non- 
Roman  provinces  of  the  Church  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider 
how  these  were  added  to  its  Empire  and  to  dwell  for  a  brief 
space  on  Christian  missionary  activities.  Finally  an  attempt 
must  be  made  to  explain  the  method  of  ecclesiastical  adminis- 
tration and  especially  the  constitution  of  its  centre,  the  Church 
of  Rome. 

Roman  Gaul,  which  was  bounded  by  the  Rhine,  may  first 
be  considered  because  here  the  provincial  divisions  of  the  an- 
cient Empire  were  most  closely  reproduced  in  the  jurisdictions 
of  the  archbishops  who  possessed  authority  over  the  bishops 
of  the"dioceses"whichcomposed  their"provinces."  By  a  curious 
inversion,  these  words,  borrowed  from  the  imperial  adminis- 
tration, meant  exactly  the  opposite  in  the  ecclesiastical  from 
what  they  had  signified  in  the  secular  world,  where  a  "diocese" 
implied  a  collection  of  "provinces." 


88 


INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 


I.  The  provinces  of  Gaul  west  of  the  Rhine  were: 

Colonia  Agrippina  =   Cologne  corresponding  roughly  to  Germania  I 

in  A.D.  390 


Treviri 
Vesontio 

Darentasia 


=   Treves 
=    Besancon 

=   Tarentaise 


Eburodum 

Remi 

Lugdunum 

Vienna 

Aquae  Sextiae 

Arelate 

Narbona 

Elimberris,  or 

Augusta  Auchorum 

Bituricae  =    Bourges 

Burdegala  =   Bordeaux 

Turones  =   Tours 

Rotomagus  =    Rouen 

Senones  =   Sens 


=   Embrun 
=    Reims 
=   Lyons 
=   Vienne 
=   Aix 

=   Aries  ) 

=   Narbonne  j 

=   Audi 


<< 
<< 


Belgica  I 

Maxima    Sequano- 

rum 
Alpes     Peninae     et 

Graiae 
Alpes  Maritimae 
Belgica  II 
Lugdunensis  I 
Viennensis 
Narbonensis  I 

Narbonensis  II 

Novempopulana 

Aquitanica  I 
Aquitanica  II 
Lugdunensis  III 
1   Lugdunensis  II 
'   Lugdunensis  IV 


The  history  of  the  ecclesiastical  provinces  of  Gaul  begins 
with  that  of  Aries,  a    see  since  1802  no   longer  in  existence. 
Once  it  was  most  important,  not  only  because  Aries  was  in 
the  fifth  century  the  chief  city  of  southern  Gaul,  but  on  account 
of  its  famous  bishops,  and  its  contest  for  supremacy  with  the 
bishops  of  Vienne   and   Narbonne.   Aries  was   an  important 
episcopal  see  in  early  Christian  times,  but  in  the  Middle  Ages 
except  in  giving  the  name  to  the  Burgundian  regnum  Areta- 
lense,  it  did  not  play  a  great  part  in  history.  Julius  Caesar  had 
granted  it  privileges  as  a  Roman  colony,  founded  by  his  lieu- 
tenant Tiberius  Claudius  Nero;  and  it  was  evidently  a  great 
commercial  centre  enjoying  the  favour  of  successive  Emperors. 
Constantine  chose  it  as  a  place  of  residence,  and  for  a  time  it 
assumed  his  name  and  was  known  as  Constantina.  This  may 
account  for  its  having  been  selected  by  him  for  the  first  Chris- 
tian council  held  under  imperial  patronage  in  314.  Ecclesias- 
tically it  comes  into  prominence  during  the  pontificate  of  Zosi- 
mus  (417-418),  when  it  had  succeeded  Treves  as  the   seat  of 
government  in  Gaul.  Zosimus  made  its  bishop,  Proculus,  into 


THE   CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  89 

a  sort  of  papal  legate,  giving  him  jurisdiction  over  the  neigh- 
bouring provinces.  Its  famous  bishop  Hilary  of  Aries  stood 
out  for  the  independence  of  his  see  in  the  days  of  Leo  the 
Great,  and  he  was  for  a  time  forced  by  the  Pope  to  confine 
himself  to  his  own  city;  but  the  next  Pope  Hilarius  (461-468) 
again  recognised  Aries  as  a  leading  see;  and  in  the  beginning 
of  the  sixth  century,  in  513,  the  bishop  Caesarius  received  the 
pall  from  Pope  Symmachus,  this  being  the  first  time  on  record 
of  such  an  honour  being  bestowed  as  a  sign  of  archiepiscopal 
dignity.  Caesarius  acted  throughout  his  occupancy  of  the  see 
as  the  papal  representative  of  Gaul;  and  in  the  days  of  Gregory 
the  Great,  it  was  at  the  hands  of  Vigilius,  Archbishop  of  Aries, 
that  Augustine  obtained  consecration.  After  this  the  papal 
connection  with  Aries  became  less  close,  and  the  importance 
of  the  province  diminished.  Its  territory  was  gradually  reduced 
till  it  became  one  of  the  least  prominent  of  the  French  prov- 
inces. It  was  in  early  days  the  most  important  centre  of  papal  in- 
fluence in  Gaul.  The  other  southern  provinces  were  Embrun, 
Aix,  Narbonne  and  Auch.  Embrun  and  Aix  were  made  arch- 
bishoprics in  794;  but  in  1791  the  former  ceased  even  to  be 
the  see  of  a  bishop,  and  was  placed  under  the  charge  of  the 
bishop  of  Gap,  so  that  its  cathedral  is  now  no  more  than  a 
parish  church.  The  modern  archdiocese  is  Aix,  which  includes, 
as  has  been  indicated,  the  more  celebrated  and  ancient  province 
of  Aries. 

Like  Embrun,  Narbonne  has  fallen  from  its  high  estate 
and  become  a  church  in  the  diocese  of  Carcassonne;  but  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Albigensian  crusade  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury the  Archbishop  was  a  prelate  of  great  influence,  his  au- 
thority extending  into  the  Spanish  peninsula,  and  he  had  the 
legal  right  of  presiding  over  the  estates  of  Languedoc.  The 
traditional  founder  of  Narbonne  was  Paulus,  in  whom  tradition 
found  Sergius  Paulus,  the  distinguished  convert  of  St.  Paul. 
According  to  Gregory  of  Tours,  however,  he  was  one  of  the  mis- 
sionaries who  came  to  Gaul  at  the  time  of  the  persecution  of 
Decius  in  the  third  century. 

The  fourth  southern  metropolitan  see  was  Auch  (Elimberris, 


90  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Augusta  Auchorum).  Its  history,  if  more  continuous  than  those 
enumerated,  is  not  of  particular  interest,  though  down  to  1789 
the  Archbishop  enjoyed  the  title  of  Primate  of  Aquitaine. 

Starting  again  from  east  to  west  were  the  provinces  of 
Tarentaise,  Vienne,  Bourges,  and  Bordeaux.  Tarentaise  was 
recognised  as  a  metropolitan  see  with  three  suffragans  by  Leo 
III  (793-816),  but  in  subordination  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Vienne.  The  province  was  part  of  the  territory  which  was 
alternately  held  by  France  and  Savoy,  and  since  i860  has  be- 
longed to  France.  In  1181  the  Archbishop  was  declared  by 
Frederick  Barbarossa  to  be  a  Prince  of  the  Empire.  The 
ancient  city  Darantasia  was  destroyed  by  the  Saracens  in 
the  tenth  century,  and  the  bishops  removed  to  the  right  bank 
of  the  river  Isere  and  their  new  home  was  known  as  Moustier 
(the  monastery).  Hence  the  see  is  sometimes  known  as  Mous- 
tier en  Tarentaise.  After  1791  it  ceased  to  be  an  archdiocese, 
and  is  now  in  the  province  of  Chambery. 

Like  Tarentaise,  the  more  famous  archepiscopal  see  of 
Vienne  has  disappeared;  and  now  is  a  town  in  the  diocese  of 
Grenoble,  though  the  primate  of  the  next  province  has  been 
styled  since  the  Concordat  of  1801  "Archbishop  of  Lyons  and 
Vienne."  In  early  times  there  was  great  ecclesiastical  rivalry 
between  Vienne  and  Aries;  and  as  early  as  450  Leo  the  Great 
gave  the  Bishop  of  Vienne  the  power  of  ordaining  the  bishops 
of  Tarentaise,  Valence,  Geneva  and  Grenoble.  The  see  pro- 
duced a  goodly  crop  of  saints — most  of  its  early  bishops  were 
canonized — one  pope,  Guy  of  Burgundy  (Callistus  II),  11 19  to 
1 124,  was  archbishop  from  1084  to  11 19.  He  was  a  son  of  William 
the  Great  (Tete  Hardie),  Count  of  Burgundy,  and  was  a  near 
relation  of  almost  every  sovereign  in  Europe.  On  his  election 
as  pontiff  he  confesses  that  he  was  abandoning  a  poor  arch- 
bishopric with  great  regret  for  "an  honourable  but  most 
grievous  burthen";  for  everybody  in  Burgundy  was  either  his 
relation  or  his  dependent.  As  his  dispute  with  St.  Hugh  Bishop 
of  Grenoble  shows,  Archbishop  Guy  was  vigorous  in  advancing 
the  power  of  Vienne;  nor  did  he  forget  his  old  home  as  Pope. 
He  gave  into  the  Archbishop's   authority   as  suffragans  the 


THE  CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  91 

Bishops  of  Grenoble,  Valence,  Die,  Viviers,  Geneva  and  Mau- 
rienne;  he  placed  the  Archbishop  of  Tarentaise  under  him  and 
gave  him  primacy  over  the  provinces  of  Bourges,  Narbonne, 
Bordeaux,  Aix,  Auch,  and  Embrun  with  the  title  of  Primate  of 
Primates.  The  Archbishop  of  Vienne  was  also  Count  and 
Archchancellor  of  the  Kingdom  of  Aries,  when  it  became 
united  to  the  Empire. 

Eastward  of  Vienne  lay  the  immense  province  of  Bourges, 
the  largest  in  medieval  France.  This  and  the  neighbouring 
provinces  were  rivals  for  the  primacy  of  Aquitaine,  though  the 
name  of  the  district  as  a  political  division  had  disappeared 
after  the  thirteenth  century. 

Again,  working  from  east  to  west,  are  the  provinces  of 
Besancon,  Lyons,  Sens,  and  Tours.  Besancon  (Vesontio)  was 
not  the  metropolitan  see  of  the  modern  province,  which  in- 
cluded Verdun  and  Toul,  and,  till  1870,  Metz;  but  its  jurisdic- 
tion extended  into  Switzerland  over  the  Sees  of  Lausanne 
and  Bale. 

The  venerable  see  of  Lyons  (Lugdunum),  the  scene  of  the 
persecution  in  177,  has  been  continuously  an  important 
Christian  centre.  It  was  probably  founded  as  a  Greek  speaking 
church  by  Asiatic  Christians.  Situated  at  the  confluence  of 
the  Rhone  and  the  Saone,  the  city  has  always  been  a  leading 
commercial  centre.  At  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  it 
was  the  capital  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Burgundy.  Under 
Charles  the  Great,  its  Archbishop  Leidrade  and  his  successor, 
the  "Chorepiscopus,"  Agobard  were  the  great  opponents  of  the 
Adoptianist  heresy.  It  was  the  scene  of  several  councils  and 
was  in  April,  1079  given  the  primacy  over  the  provinces  of 
Tours,  Sens  and  Rouen.  The  Archbishop  in  the  twelfth  century 
exercised  considerable  temporal  power,  confirmed  by  the  Em- 
peror Frederick  Barbarossa.  The  see  was  renowned  for  its 
peculiar  "use"  in  the  liturgy,  and  was  the  capital  of  the  Gal- 
lican  rite;  and  in  the  thirteenth  century  it  was  almost  a  second 
Rome.  It  was  troubled  alike  by  the  Waldensians,  the  Poor  men 
of  Lyons,  and  in  the  days  of  the  Reformation  by  the  Calvin- 
ists.  At  Lyons  in  11 28  the  Feast  of  the  Immaculate  Conception 


92  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

was  first  celebrated;  and  the  introduction  of  this  unauthorized 
festival  drew  down  a  reproof  from  St.  Bernard. 

The  Archbishopric  of  Sens  (Senones)  in  the  twelfth  century 
included  Paris,  which  was  not  raised  to  metropolitan  rank  till 
1622.  Both  sees,  however,  were  of  ancient  origin;  and  Sens 
acknowledged  in  a  measure  the  primacy  of  Reims.  Eastwards 
of  Sens  lay  the  province  of  Tours.  The  archbishop's  see  re- 
ceived lustre  from  having  been  founded  by  St.  Gatien,  one  of 
the  twelve  missionaries  to  Gaul  in  the  third  century  and  from 
having  been  occupied  by  St.  Martin,  the  most  popular  of 
Gallican  saints,  and  by  the  historian  Gregory  of  Tours.  Its 
jurisdiction  extended  over  Touraine  and  Britanny,  and  it  was 
regarded  as  one  of  the  most  important  in  France.  Till  the  reign 
of  Philip  Augustus,  the  archbishop  had  the  right  of  coining 
money.  The  monasteries  and  relics  of  Tours  made  the  city 
especially  famous. 

The  last  four  archbishoprics  of  Gaul  still  working  from 
eastward  to  west  were  Treves,  Cologne,  Reims  and  Rouen. 

When  Gaul  is  spoken  of  it  must  never  be  confused  with 
France,  for  many  of  the  provinces  thus  far  enumerated  were 
outside  the  limits  of  the  modern  kingdom.  Treves,  now  thor- 
oughly German,  was  the  capital  of  Roman  Gaul,  and  was  one 
of  the  most  important  cities  in  the  Western  Empire.  Like  so 
many  of  the  medieval  provinces  of  Gaul  Treves  has  fallen 
from  its  estate  as  an  archbishopric  and  has  become  a  suffragan 
see  under  Cologne.  But  till  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  sees  in  northern  Europe. 
The  archbishop  was  Archchancellor  of  the  Empire,  a  prince, 
and  one  of  the  seven  electors:  with  the  primate  of  Germany 
(Mainz)  and  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  he  ranked  among  the 
sovereign  princes  of  Europe. 

To  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne  belonged  since  the  twelfth 
century  the  dignity  of  Imperial  Chancellor  for  Italy,  and  the 
city  was  sometimes  called  the  northern  Rome.  The  history  of 
the  Archbishops  of  Cologne  in  the  Middle  Ages  may  be  de- 
scribed as  one  of  great  princes  who  were  constantly  occupied 
with  aggrandising  their  position  in  the  Empire,  for  in  addition 


THE  CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  93 

to  their  ecclesiastical  office  they  were  Dukes  of  Westphalia,  a 
title  first  bestowed  on  Philip  I  of  Heinsburg  (1167-1191). 
St.  Ingelbert  was  the  only  prelate  whose  influence  was  distinctly 
religious,  the  archbishops  being  as  a  rule  powerful  nobles. 

The  western  neighbour  of  Cologne  was  Reims,  the  primatial 
see  of  France.  The  Archbishop  was  specially  distinguished  by 
having  the  sole  right  to  crown  the  kings  of  France.  On  such 
occasions  he  and  his  suffragans  the  Bishop-Dukes  of  Laon  and 
Langres,  and  the  Bishop-Counts  of  Beauvais,  Chalons,  and 
Noyon  officiated  as  the  six  spiritual  peers  of  France,  the  tem- 
poral being  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy,  Guienne,  and  Normandy, 
and  the  Counts  of  Champagne,  Flanders,  and  Toulouse.  The 
splendid  cathedral  took  from  121 1  to  13 11  to  complete;  and  its 
tragic  fate  is  one  of  the  most  melancholy  incidents  of  the 
recent  war.  The  Benedictine  Monastery  of  St.  Remi  was  extra- 
diocesan,  like  Westminster  Abbey  in  England.  In  it  was  pre- 
served the  sacred  ampulla  containing  the  oil  wherewith  St. 
Remigius  had  anointed  Clovis. 

The  last  see  in  Roman  Gaul  to  be  here  enumerated  is 
Rouen.  The  pallium  was  granted  to  Grimo  by  Pope  Zacharias 
in  744  and  the  archbishops  claimed  the  primacy  of  Normandy 
and  Neustria,  and  acknowledged  no  higher  authority,  except 
that  of  Rome.  Curiously  enough  the  chapter  was  like  the 
Archbishopric  independent  of  all  control  but  that  of  the  Pope. 
Under  the  Norman  and  Plantagenet  kings  Rouen  was  naturally 
closely  connected  with  England. 

Outside  Gaul  on  the  east  of  the  Rhine  lay  the  large  ecclesias- 
tical provinces  of  Germany  beyond  the  frontiers  of  the  ancient 
Roman  Empire.  The  first  organizer  of  the  Papal  Empire  in  this 
district  was  that  truly  remarkable  English  missionary  Winfrid 
or  Boniface  of  Crediton,  successively  Archbishop  of  Cologne 
(745)  and  Mainz  (748),  and  finally  a  missionary  and  martyr  in 
Rhenish  Prussia.  His  activity  as  an  organizer  began  in  Bavaria, 
where  he  set  up  the  four  bishoprics  of  Salzburg,  Freising, 
Ratisbon  and  Passau  (739).  After  the  death  of  Charles  Martel 
he  established  bishoprics  in  Franconia  at  Wiirzburg,  Eich- 
statt,  and  Buraburg. 


94  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

From  the  time  of  Boniface  Mainz  or  Mayence,  the  ancient 
Moguntium,  became  the  primatial  see  of  Germany.  The  juris- 
diction of  the  Archbishop  extended  from  the  borders  of  modern 
Italy  to  Hamburg,  and  in  our  period  included  Bavaria,  the 
duchy  of  Austria,  and  Styria. 

In  841  a  missionary  province  was  created  at  Hamburg, 
which  was  intended  to  include  the  unconverted  Scandinavian 
lands;  but  the  metropolitan  see  was  finally  settled  at  Bremen, 
and  by  the  establishment  of  the  northern  provinces  of  Lund, 
Drontheim,  and  Upsala  its  jurisdiction  was  greatly  restricted. 
A  later  province  was  that  of  Magdeburg  founded  by  Otto  I  in 
968  for  the  Wendish  lands  beyond  the  Elbe  and  Saale. 

A  study  of  the  map  of  medieval  Germany  reveals  the  im- 
mense territorial  power  of  the  Church.  Not  merely  the  electoral 
archbishops,  but  many  of  their  suffragans,  exercised  princely 
authority  over  a  great  part  of  the  Empire  and  the  great  abbots 
also  enjoyed  sovereign  rights.  Thus,  west  of  the  Rhine,  Cam- 
bray,  Liege,  Treves,  Cologne,  Metz,  Strassburg,  Verdun,  Toul, 
Basel,  Sion  (Sitten)  and  the  Abbey  of  Mirbach,  were  all  eccle- 
siastical principalities.  In  the  north  the  Bishops  of  Bremen, 
Utrecht,  Minden,  Miinster,  Paderborn,  Osnabnick — George 
Ill's  son,  the  Duke  of  York,  was  lay  Bishop  of  Osnabnick — were 
rulers  of  considerable  districts.  The  abbots  of  Hersfeld  and 
Fulda  enjoyed  similar  privileges;  and,  of  course,  the  civil  juris- 
diction of  such  prelates  as  Mainz,  Salzburg  and  Magdeburg,  to 
mention  only  metropolitan  sees,  were  very  extensive.  It  is  suf- 
ficient to  say  that,  owing  to  the  policy  of  Otto  I,  a  large  part  of 
the  German  Empire  was  directly  governed  by  ecclesiastical 
princes,  and  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  this  fact  in  estimat- 
ing the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  Church  within  the  confines 
of  the  Empire. 

To  return  to  the  boundaries  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the 
Western  Church  had  its  provinces  in  northern  Italy,  Spain  and 
Britain. 

The  provinces  of  Italy  present  a  difficult  problem,  com- 
plicated by  the  fact  that  the  south  repeatedly  passed  under 
different    masters — Greeks,    Lombards,    Saracens,    Normans, 


THE  CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  95 

Germans,  Angevins  and  Spaniards.  In  northern  Italy  four 
provinces  were  comparatively  modern;  Pisa  was  detached  from 
Rome  in  1092,  Genoa  from  Milan  in  1133,  whilst  Florence  did 
not  become  an  archbishopric  till  1420,  nor  Siena  till  1459.  The 
first  pair  of  provinces,  Genoa  and  Pisa,  divided  Corsica  be- 
tween them.  There  remain  therefore  three  provinces  north  of 
Rome,  two  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  Milan  (Mediolanum),  Aquileia, 
and  Ravenna. 

Milan  was  the  governmental  capital  of  Italy  in  the  fourth 
century,  and  the  scene  of  the  labours  of  St.  Ambrose  which 
gave  the  see  an  enduring  reputation  throughout  the  Catholic 
Church.  With  its  great  traditions  and  its  famous  Ambrosian 
liturgy,  this  church  enjoyed  an  eminence  enhanced  by  the  high 
character  of  many  occupants  of  the  see,  representing  as  it  did 
the  traditions  of  the  Lombard  nation.  Ravenna  for  a  longer 
period  than  Milan  was  a  capital  city,  having  been  the  seat  of 
government  of  the  western  Emperors  of  the  fifth  century,  and 
of  the  Exarchs  at  a  later  period.  From  the  days  of  the  Emperor 
Valentinian  III,  in  the  fifth  century,  the  Archbishop  had  four- 
teen bishops  under  him.  Its  Archbishops  had  disputed  the  pre- 
eminence of  Rome  itself;  and  its  churches  are  among  the  most 
venerable  in  Italy.  The  authority  of  the  Patriarch  of  Aquileia 
extended  over  Venetia,  as  did  that  of  the  Archbishop  of  Milan 
over  Lombardy.  In  the  days  of  the  Lombard  invasion  the 
Patriarch  removed  to  Grado;  and  owing  to  the  schism  due  to 
the  Three  Chapters  controversy,  there  was  a  dispute  as  to 
which  city  was  the  seat  of  the  Patriarchate.  Istria  was  included 
in  this  ecclesiastical  province. 

The  province  of  Rome  in  the  northern  part  of  the  peninsula 
was  part  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Pope  as  Bishop  of  Rome. 
In  the  canon,  falsely  called  Nicene,  the  Roman  bishop  is  given 
authority  over  the  "suburbicarican"  churches.  By  this  is 
probably  meant,  not  those  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
Rome,  the  later  sense  of  the  word,  but  the  cities  under  the 
Praefecture  of  the  City  in  the  old  Roman  Empire.  This  included 
all  Italy  south  to  a  line  drawn  from  Ancona  to  Lucca  and 
Sicily.    But   it   must   not   be   forgotten   that   southern   Italy, 


96  INTRODUCTION  TO   HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

during  the  days  of  the  Lombard  invasions,  was  under  Con- 
stantinople, and  for  a  long  time  was  a  Greek  speaking  country, 
looking  rather  to  the  New  than  to  the  Old  Rome. 

The  first  provinces  to  be  formed  were  Bari,  Otranto,  Reggio, 
Catania  and  Syracuse.  Naples,  Capua,  Sorrento,  Beneventum, 
Taranto,  Salerno  and  Amain*  obtained  archbishops  between 
962  and  987;  more  ecclesiastical  provinces  were  added  by  the 
Normans;  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  there  were  more  arch- 
bishops in  Southern  Italy  than  in  the  whole  of  Roman  Gaul, 
or  almost  in  Britain,  Germany,  Spain,  and  Scandinavia  to- 
gether. 

The  ecclesiastical  history  of  Spain  was  interrupted  by  the 
amazing  success  of  the  Saracen  invaders  in  the  eighth  century, 
and  by  the  stubborn  reconquest  of  the  land  by  the  Christians 
whom  they  had  dispossessed.  Under  the  Roman  Empire  the 
peninsula  was  divided  in  six  provinces— Tarraconensis,  Gal- 
kecia,   Lusitania,   Baetica,   Cathaginiensis.   In  these  the  most 
important  bishoprics  were  Tarragona,  Lucus  and  Bracara  (in 
Gallsecia),    Emerita    (in   Lusitania),    Hispalis,    or   Seville    (in 
Bsetica),  and  Toledo  (in  Carthaginiensis).  These  were  apparently 
the  metropolitan  sees  in  Visigothic  times.  The  great  invasion 
of  the  Saracens  (710-713)  destroyed  the  old  boundaries,  and 
though    the    conquerors    tolerated    Christianity    few    sees    in 
Spain  except  in  the  extreme  north  have  had  an  unbroken  ex- 
istence. Reduced  to  take  refuge  in  the  northeastern  district  of 
Gallicia  and  Asturias,  the  Christians  of  Spain  began  the  age- 
long work  of  driving  back  their  unbelieving  conquerors.  En- 
couraged by  the  presence  of  the  national  saint,  James  the  son 
of  Zebedee,  the  protomartyr  of  the  Apostles,  at  Santiago  di 
Compostella,  they  steadily  advanced  southward  till  in   1492 
the  last  Moorish  kingdom  of  Granada  succumbed  to  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella. 

It  was  possible  to  travel  from  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of 
Biscay  to  those  of  the  Mediterranean  without  stepping  outside 
the  territory  subject  to  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  the  Primate 
of  Spain,  one  of  the  greatest  prelates  in  Christendom,  and  the 
head   of  the   most  severely  Catholic  of  churches;    though  it 


THE   CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF   THE  WEST  97 

received  the  Roman  doctrine  with  a  respect  which  was 
not  always  accorded  to  its  claim  to  Papal  authority.  The 
unbroken  record  of  primates  begins  in  1058.  Besides  Toledo 
the  provinces  which  are  on  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  are 
the  Catalonian  archbishopric  of  Tarragona,  founded  in  1091, 
and  of  Valentia,  both  part  of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Aragon. 
Inland,  and  included  in  the  same  kingdom,  is  the  province  of 
Caesaraugusta  (Saragossa).  The  two  southern  provinces  were 
those  of  Granada,  the  last  to  be  won  from  the  Mohammedans, 
created  an  archiepiscopal  see  in  place  of  the  older  Eliberis 
(Elvira)  in  1492,  and  Seville.  These  with  the  provinces  of 
Compostella  in  the  west,  between  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  of 
Burgos  in  the  north  complete  the  Spanish  archbishoprics. 

The  kingdom  of  Portugal  was  under  three  archbishops — 
Braga,  Lisbon  (Olysipona)  and  Evora.  Lisbon,  which  in  1716 
was  made  a  Patriarchate,  was  only  made  an  archbishopric  in 

1394- 

The  part  of  Britain  which  was   under  the   Roman   sway, 

was  divided  by  Gregory  the  Great  into  two  provinces,  originally 
intended  to  be  at  London  and  York,  and  to  rank  in  order  of 
seniority  of  the  archbishop.  Though  inferior  in  age  to  Aries, 
Canterbury,  as  the  home  of  Augustine  when  he  received  the 
pall,  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  western  archbishoprics.  Its  juris- 
diction, though  more  extended  than  that  of  most  of  the  metro- 
politan sees  of  Gaul,  was  not  equal  in  area  to  that  of  Toledo, 
Magdeburg  or  Mainz.  York  had  at  one  time  but  a  single  suf- 
fragan in  Durham,  but  in  the  twelfth  century  Carlisle  became  a 
see.  It  was  after  a  long  struggle  that  southern  Britain  was 
divided  between  the  two  ecclesiastical  provinces  of  Canter- 
bury and  York  in  this  order  of  precedence.  At  the  close  of  the 
eighth  century,  when  Offa,  King  of  Mercia,  became  dominant 
among  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings,  he  attempted  to  make  his 
kingdom  a  separate  province  with  the  metropolitan  see  at  Lich- 
field; and  from  787  to  803  there  was  an  archbishop  there.  The 
Council  of  Clovesho,  however,  in  803  confirmed  the  decision  of 
Pope  Leo  III,  restoring  the  rights  of  Canterbury,  and  with- 
drawing the  pallium  from  Lichfield,  which  resumed  its  original 


98  INTRODUCTION  TO   HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

position  as  a  suffragan  bishopric.1  In  the  twelfth  century  the 
archdeacon  of  St.  Davids,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  was  inde- 
fatigable in  his  efforts  to  obtain  the  pall  for  the  Bishop  of  his 
native  see,  as  Metropolitan  of  Wales,  but  without  success.  The 
struggle  for  supremacy  between  Canterbury  and  York  dis- 
tracted the  Church  of  England  for  generations,  as  did  also  the 
question  of  the  boundaries  of  their  respective  jurisdictions.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  all  points  of 
precedence  were  settled  by  the  Pope.  The  Archbishops  of  Can- 
terbury after  1126  were  legati  nati  of  the  popes;  but  their 
powers  could  always  be  placed  in  abeyance  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  lc  gat  us  a  latere. 

The  Scottish  bishops  were  subject  in  early  times  to  the 
Abbot  of  Iona,  but  they  had  no  fixed  limits,  and  were  missionary 
rather  than  diocesan.  In  843  Kenneth,  King  of  Scotland,  made 
Dunkeld  the  leading  see,  and  in  906  this  position  was  trans- 
ferred to  St.  Andrews.  But  there  were  few  sees  before  the 
twelfth  century;  and  no  pall  was  granted  to  a  metropolitan  by 
the  Pope.  At  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  St.  Margaret, 
Queen  of  Scotland,  offered  submission  to  Archbishop  Lanfranc 
of  Canterbury.  Then  York  put  in  a  claim,  which  was  recog- 
nized by  the  Popes  and  confirmed  by  English  Councils.  This 
was  distasteful  to  the  Scottish  prelates;  and  in  1188  they 
were  declared  subject  to  no  one  but  the  Holy  See.  They  were 
not,  however,  constituted  as  a  province,  but  chose  one  of  their 
number  as  Conservator  to  execute  their  decrees. 

Ireland  seems  to  have  retained  the  practice  of  having 
missionary  bishops  attached  to  monasteries,  but  without 
dioceses.  The  Danish  and  Norwegian  settlers  at  Dublin, 
Waterford,  and  Limerick  when  they  were  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity appear  to  have  turned  to  Canterbury  rather  than  to 
the  Celtic  bishops.  The  four  archbishoprics,  into  which  Ireland 
was  subsequently  divided,  date  from  the  Synod  of  Kells,  11 52, 
when  Eugenius  III  sent  the  pallium  to  iVrmagh,  Dublin, 
Cashel  and  Tuam.  During  the  Middle  Ages  there  was  a  con- 

1  Henry  of  Blois,  brother  of  King  Stephen,  tried  to  get  his  see  of  Winchester 
made  a  metropolitan  see  with  seven  suffragans. 


THE  CHURCH  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  99 

tinual  dispute  as  to  whether  the  primacy  was  vested  in  Dublin 
or  Armagh;  but  ultimately  Armagh  was  recognised  as  the 
leader. 

The  Scandinavian  countries  naturally  were  late  in  entering 
the  Christian  fold  and,  as  has  been  indicated,  were  originally 
placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  Hamburg,  and  later  of  Bremen. 
With  their  conversion  and  organization  as  Christian  kingdoms 
Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway  were  made  ecclesiastical 
provinces  with  metropolitans  at  Lund,  Upsala  and  Drontheim. 

The  first  great  missionary  who  desired  to  convert  the 
Northmen  was  St.  Liudger  (d.  809),  who  had  studied  under 
Alcuin  and,  like  his  master,  was  highly  favoured  by  Charles 
the  Great.  His  success  in  the  dominions  of  the  Emperor  as  a 
preacher  to  the  heathen  Saxons  made  Charles  forbid  him  to 
undertake  the  work,  and  the  actual  pioneer  in  northern  mis- 
sionary enterprise  was  St.  Anschar  (Ansgarius)  who  under  the 
patronage  of  the  Emperor  Louis  le  Debonnaire  laboured  as  a 
missionary  in  Denmark  and  Sweden,  and  became  bishop  of 
Hamburg,  being  also  appointed  legate  by  Gregory  IV.  Hamburg 
was  completely  destroyed  by  Eric,  King  of  Jutland,  and  in  857 
Anschar  became  Archbishop  of  Bremen.  He  had  previously 
entered  Sweden  with  the  ambassadors  of  Louis  and  preached 
the  Gospel  there. 

The  progress  of  Christianity  in  Denmark  was  marked  by 
alternate  advances  and  reverses;  and  it  was  not  till  the  days 
of  Canute  the  Great  (1014-1035)  that  Christianity  definitely 
triumphed.  In  1104  Lund  became  an  archiepiscopal  see  with 
seven  suffragans.  The  seat  of  the  primate  was  in  what  is  now 
the  south  of  the  kingdom  of  Sweden,  but  was  then  part  of 
Denmark.  In  the  thirteenth  century  Esthonia  was  under  Lund. 
The  Archbishopric  of  Upsala,  including  Finland,  formed  the 
Swedish  province.  The  organization  of  the  two  northern  king- 
doms of  Sweden  and  Norway  was  due  to  the  mission  of  the  famous 
Englishman,  Nicholas  Breakspeare,  Cardinal  of  Albano,  after- 
wards Pope  Hadrian  IV,  as  papal  legate,  under  whom  the  first 
Swedish  national  council  was  held  at  Linkoping  in  1152;  but 


IOO  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

it  was  not  till  after  twelve  years,  in  1164,  that  Upsalawas  cre- 
ated an  archbishopric  by  Pope  Alexander  III.  In  heathen  days 
it  was  a  most  famous  sanctuary,  and  human  sacrifices!  were 
offered  at  its  temple.  The  cathedral  dates  from  1287.  The 
University  obtained  in  1477  its  charter  from  Sixtus  IV  through 
Archbishop  Jakob  Ulfsson,  and  the  last  Catholic  Archbishop 
was  Olaus  Magnus  (d.  1588),  the  historian  of  the  northern 
nations.  The  most  extensive  of  the  Scandinavian  provinces  was 
that  of  Trondheim  or  Drontheim  (Nidrosia,  Urbs  Thrudensis) 
which  embraced  the  northern  islands,  the  Faroes,  Shetland, 
Orkneys  and  Hebrides,  the  most  southerly  being  the  Isle  of 
Man.  Iceland  was  also  a  part  of  this  province,  as  was  Green- 
land till  the  extinction  of  the  Norse  settlement  at  Gardar  in 
the  fifteenth  century.  This  province  was  created  by  Break- 
speare. 

The  conversion  of  Norway  will  always  be  connected  with 
the  two  kings  who  bore  the  name  of  Olaf.  The  first  of  these, 
Olaf  Tryggevesson  (995-1000),  was  a  mighty  sea-rover,  who 
embraced  Christianity  on  being  converted  by  a  monk  of  the 
Scilly  Islands,  and  henceforward  abstained  from  attacking 
Christian  England,  devoting  his  sword  and  his  energies  to* 
the  conversion  of  his  own  people.  He  modelled  his  church  on 
that  of  England,  of  whose  priests  he  made  free  use  in  the  work 
of  spreading  the  Gospel  in  Norway.  He  was  defeated  in  a  sea 
fight  by  the  combined  navy  of  the  Swedes  and  Danes  and 
perished  by  leaping  into  the  sea  from  his  ship  the  "Long  Snake," 
the  greatest  war  vessel  of  the  north.  Olaf  II,  known  as  the  Fat, 
and  afterwards  as  St.  Olaf  (1016-1030),  though  not  the  son, 
was  a  worthy  follower  of  his  predecessor,  and  his  vigorous 
zeal  for  Christianity  was  not  dissimilar.  He  is  regarded  as  the 
patron  saint  of  Norway,  and  was  canonized  in  1164.  He  is 
commemorated  in  the  City  of  London  by  the  Church  of  St. 
Olave,  Hart  Street.  In  the  name  Sodor  and  Man,  applied  to 
the  tiny  diocese  of  the  island,  there  is  a  recollection  of  the  old 
Norwegian  occupation  of  the  western  islands  of  Britain,  Sodor 
meaning  the  southern  land.  The  one  solitary  spot  on  the 
American  continent  within  the  Church  Empire  of  the  West 


THE  CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  IOI 

was  Greenland,  with  its  episcopal  see  at  Gardar,  which  disap- 
peared, probably  early  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

The  conversion  of  Eastern  Europe  went  on  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  from  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century.  The  see 
of  Magdeburg  was  established  by  Otto  I  with  a  view  of  con- 
verting the  Wendish  lands  beyond  the  Elbe.  The  Wends  were 
members  of  the  Slavic  race  which  occupies  the  greater  part  of 
Eastern    Europe    as    Russians,    Poles,    Bohemians,    Slovaks, 
Slovenes,  Croats,  Serbs  and  Bulgarians.  The  archbishopric  of 
Magdeburg  originally  extended  beyond  the  River  Oder  and 
even  the  Vistula  far  into  Poland.  The  coasts  of  the  Baltic, 
Pomerania,   Russia,   Courland,  Livonia,  and  Esthonia  long  re- 
mained heathen.  Indeed,  no  sees  were  established  in  Pomerania 
east  of  the  Oder  till  1 180.  The  Archbishopric  of  Riga,  which  in- 
cluded most  of  the  Eastern  coasts  of  the  Baltic,  dates  from  1253. 
The  conversion  of  the  Slavic  peoples  was  one  of  the  chief 
missionary  labours  of  the  medieval  period.  The  chief  apostles 
of  Slavic  Christianity  were  Cyril  and  Methodius,  the  inventors 
of  its   alphabet    and   the   first  preachers  of  Christianity,  who 
still  rank  among  the  greatest  saints  in  the  Church  of  Russia. 
These  properly  belong  to  Greek  Christianity,  but  as  their  work 
was  recognised  by  the  popes  of  the  ninth  century,  they  take 
their  place  among  the  pioneers  of  the  Western  Church.  Con- 
sidering their  fame,  remarkably  little  is  definitely  known  of 
their  lives  and  labours,  and  the  statements  of  historians  re- 
garding them  are  singularly  discordant.  It  must  constantly  be 
borne  in  mind  that,  in  any  discussion  of  their  relation  towards 
the  Roman  See,  the  period  is  that  of  the  undivided  Church,  and 
one  also  when  Rome  and  Constantinople  were  at  amity.  Nor 
do  Cyril  and  Methodius  appear  to  have  had  any  connection 
with  the  Bulgarian  Church,  which  at  its  inception  was  a  debat- 
able land  between  the  jurisdictions  of  New  and  Old  Rome. 

The  main  portion  of  the  great  Slav  race  which  occupies  no 
small  part  of  Europe  adhered  to  the  See  of  Constantinople, 
and  the  lesser  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  But  it  is  remarkable 
that  whereas  the  Germanic  races  took  over  the  Latin  language 
in  their  liturgies  the  Slavs,  in  a  large  part  of  the  territory 


102  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

occupied  by  them,  adopted  their  own  language  for  the  worship 
of  the  Church. 

The  names  of  Cyril  and  Methodius  are  familiar:  their  acts 
are  so  little  known,  that  a  short  notice  of  them  may  not  here 
be  out  of  place.  They  were  Greeks  of  Thessalonica  of  noble 
birth  and  both  embraced  the  monastic  life.  Cyril  was  selected 
to  go  to  Khazars  as  a  missionary.  He  was  then  known  by  his 
secular  name  of  Constantine.  The  Khazars  belonged  to  a 
Turkish  race  living  on  the  shores  of  the  Caspian,  a  rich  and 
powerful  people  who  played  an  important  part  in  Byzantine 
history,  and  had  even  given  an  Empress  to  Constantinople. 
They  were  the  object  of  missionary  endeavour  on  the  part  of 
Jews,  Mohammedans,  and  Christians;  but  the  influence  of 
Judaism  was  decidedly  predominant.  One  of  their  Chagans  is 
said  to  have  prayed  with  the  Moslems  on  Friday,  the  Jews  on 
Saturday,  and  the  Christians  on  Sunday.  Cyril,  perhaps  ac- 
companied by  his  brother,  was  well  received,  but  his  mission 
cannot  have  been  very  successful,  except  for  the  fact  that  at 
Cherson,  where  he  was  learning  the  Khazar  language,  he  was 
fortunate  enough  to  recover  the  body  of  St.  Clement  I,  the 
famous  Roman  bishop  who  had  been  drowned  in  the  sea  by 
command  of  Trajan.  This  happened  about  860;  and  in  864  Cyril 
was  sent  with  his  brother  Methodius  to  convert  the  Moravians. 
They  were  evidently  men  of  learning,  for  Cyril  had  filled  the 
post  of  librarian  at  Constantinople  to  the  erudite  Archbishop 
Photius,  and  must  therefore  have  been  recognised  as  one  of 
the  great  scholars  of  his  age,  and  have  been  qualified  by  his 
education  for  the  work  he  subsequently  achieved. 

Moravia  was  a  Slavonic  land  extending  into  modern 
Hungary,  as  far  as  the  River  Gran;  nominally  it  was  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Passau,  and  was  a  sort  of  client 
state  of  the  Western  Empire.  Under  two  powerful  princes, 
Radislaus  and  Swatoplak,  it  was  in  the  later  years  of  the  ninth 
century,  an  important  country,  though  its  Christianity  before 
the  arrival  of  Cyril  and  Methodius  was  really  but  nominal.  It 
ultimately  became  subject  to  Bohemia.  The  Slavs  demanded 
Christianity  to  be  presented  in  their  own  language,  and  the 


THE  CHURCH  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  1 03 

missionaries  gratified  them  by  translating  the  Scriptures  and 
the  Divine  Liturgy.  To  do  this  they  had,  like  Ulfilas  in  the 
fourth  century,  to  devise  a  suitable  alphabet,  which  is  still 
known  as  the  Cyrillic,  or  Glagolitic  (Slavonic  glagol,  a  word). 
From  this  the  modern  Russian  alphabet  is  derived;  but  the  old 
script  is  still  used  in  the  Slavonic  liturgical  books.  The  liturgy 
they  translated  was,  naturally,  that  of  the  Church  of  Con- 
stantinople; and,  as  the  churches  of  East  and  West  were  in 
communion,  there  could  be  no  question  about  Rome's  accept- 
ing it.  But  at  this  time,  as  there  was  no  little  dispute  as  to 
whether  Moravia  was  to  be  under  German  or  Constantino- 
politan  influence,  Nicholas  I  summoned  the  brothers  to  Rome. 
He  died  before  their  arrival;  and  the  decision  as  to  the 
church  they  had  founded  rested  with  his  successor  Hadrian  II. 
The  question  of  the  Slavonic  Mass  was  naturally  a  vexed  one. 
It  had  been  supposed  that  as  Hebrew,  Greek  and  Latin  were 
the  languages  inscribed  on  the  Cross,  the  Divine  Offering  could 
only  be  made  in  one  of  them;  therefore  that  it  was  impious  to 
translate  the  Liturgy.  Another  question  arose  as  to  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  German  hierarchy  in  Slavonic  lands.  The  Pope,  in 
fact,  was  called  upon  to  mediate  and  to  decide  whether  the  new 
converts  were  to  be  allowed  to  be  Christians,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  enjoy  the  privileges  of  their  nationality. 

The  visit  of  Cyril  and  Methodius  to  Rome  is  commemorated 
in  the  subterranean  basilica  of  St.  Clement,  where  Nicholas  I 
is  depicted  as  bringing  the  relics  of  that  early  Pope  from  the 
Vatican  to  the  church,  though  the  actual  Pope  at  the  time  was 
Hadrian  II.  The  Slavonic  liturgy  was  sanctioned  with  a  pro- 
viso that  the  Epistle  and  Gospel  should  be  read  first  in  Latin; 
and  Methodius  was  consecrated  Archbishop  of  the  Slavs  in 
the  ancient  province  of  Pannonia.  Cyril  died  in  Rome,  and  was 
buried  in  the  Church  of  St.  Clement.  Methodius  returned  to 
his  work  among  the  Slavs  to  find  that  the  German  bishops  of 
Passau  and  Salzburg  were  far  from  approving  the  action  of 
the  Pope.  The  deep-seated  hatred  of  the  two  races  burst  forth 
in  the  ecclesiastical  dispute.  Methodius  was  arrested  in  871, 
beaten,  insulted,  and  for  two  years  was  immured  in  a  dungeon. 


104  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

A  papal  legate,  Paul  of  Ancona,  was  sent  by  John  VIII,  the 
successor  of  Hadrian  II.  Methodius  was  liberated;  but  the 
Slavic  Liturgy  was  forbidden,  and  the  Mass  commanded  to 
be  said  in  Latin  or  Greek.  In  879  Methodius  was  again  sum- 
moned to  Rome  and  once  more  acquitted.  Again  the  Slavonic 
liturgy  was  approved;  but  after  the  death  of  Methodius 
(April  6,  885)  the  approval  was  withdrawn  by  Pope  Stephen 
VI.  The  liturgy  made  for  the  Moravians  was  transplanted  to 
the  Slavs  in  the  East  and  North,  and  has  become  that  of  the 
Church  of  Russia.  The  Moravian  nation  was  ruined  by  the 
invading  Magyars.  But  even  as  late  as  1248  Pope  Innocent  IV 
was  petitioned  to  permit  the. use  of  the  Roman  Mass  in  Sla- 
vonic in  Croatia — written  "in  the  characters  invented  by  St. 
Jerome."  This  rite  is  still  in  use  in  four  dioceses.1  The  mistakes 
made  in  regard  to  the  use  of  Slavonic,  due  to  German  influence 
at  Rome,  were  in  part  responsible  for  the  loss  of  the  Slav  church 
to  Western  Christendom. 

Another  Slavic  people  in  whose  conversion  the  West  co- 
operated was  the  Bulgarian.  As  a  heathen  people,  the  Bul- 
garians had  long  been  the  scourge  of  the  Roman  Empire  in 
the  Balkan  peninsula.  They  were  not  Slavs,  but  akin  to  the 
Huns,  Tartars,  Avars,  and  Finns.  Their  home  was  between 
the  Ural  mountains  and  the  Volga;  and  in  679  they  crossed 
the  Danube,  and,  after  subjugating  the  Slav  peoples,  they 
threatened  Constantinople.  Under  their  King  Krum  (802-815) 
they  utterly  defeated  the  Emperor  Nicephorus.  In  the  end  their 
victorious  aristocracy  assimilated  themselves  to  the  subject 
Slavs,  adopting  their  language.  In  864  they  accepted  Christian- 
ity under  Bogoris,  or  Boris,  and  they  ascribe  their  conversion 
to  Cyril  and  Methodius,  who,  however,  do  not  seem  to  have 
visited  their  country.  The  legend  is  that  the  sister  of  Boris 
was  a  Christian  and  procured  for  her  brother  the  services  of 
Methodius  (not  the  Slavic  apostle  as  is  often  said),  who  was  a 
famous  painter.  Instead  of  depicting  a  hunting  scene  as  com- 
manded, the  artist  made  a  picture  of  the  last  judgment,  which 
so  terrified  the  king  that  he  accepted  baptism,  the  Emperor 

1  Mann,  Lives  of  the  Popes,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  238  ff. 


THE  CHURCH  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  1 05 

Michael  III  acting  as  his  sponsor.  Then  ensued  a  long  struggle 
between  Rome  and  Constantinople  for  dominance  over  the  new 
church,  which  ultimately  joined  the  Greeks  as  an  autocephalous 
church  with  a  metropolitan  see  of  its  own. 

The  Bohemians  were  first  approached  by  the  German  mis- 
sionaries, but  their  natural  antipathy  to  their  neighbours  pre- 
vented their  accepting  Christianity  at  their  hands.  Their  first 
prince  was  baptized  about  873  by  Methodius.  They  obtained 
the  right  to  have  an  ecclesiastical  province  of  their  own,  when 
Prague  was  given  an  archbishop  in  1344  under  the  Roman 
obedience. 

The  Hungarians  or  Magyars  were  not  Slavs,  and  the  origin 
of  the  nation  is  somewhat  mysterious;  but  they  appeared  in 
the  later  years  of  the  ninth  century  as  formidable  invaders, 
till  their  defeat  by  Otto  I  in  955.  They  gradually  adopted  the 
Christian  faith,  their  apostle  being  St.  Adalbert,  Bishop  of 
Prague,  and  afterward  Archbishop  of  Gnesen,  who  baptized 
their  Duke  Geiza  and  his  son,  the  famous  king  St.  Stephen  of 
Hungary.  Stephen  (997-1038)  was  the  real  founder  of  the 
Church  of  Hungary  and  was  supported  by  Otto  Ill's  friend, 
Pope  Sylvester  II  (Gerbert),  the  wonder  of  his  age  for  his 
learning  and  ability.  Stephen  sought  the  crown  of  Hungary 
from  the  Pope  who  granted  it  with  extraordinary  honours  in 
1000  or  1001,  giving  him  the  title  of  the  "Apostolic  King,"  and 
making  him  the  legate  of  the  Holy  See  in  his  dominions. 
Hungary  formed  two  provinces,  that  of  Gran,  the  primatial 
see,  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  Kaloosa-Bacs. 
Sylvester  also  presented  Stephen  with  the  famous  "holy  crown." 

The  history  of  the  conversion  of  Poland,  once  one  of  the 
greatest  kingdoms  in  Europe,  is  obscure;  but  the  prince  Miec- 
zylaw  I  and  his  people  became  Christians  in  966.  It  was  then 
under  German  suzerainty;  but  the  next  prince  Boleslaw  (992- 
1025)  asserted  his  independence,  and  was  in  the  last  year  of 
his  life  crowned  king.  He  had  obtained  also  the  independence 
of  his  church  from  Sylvester  II  and  the  provincial  see  was  es- 
tablished at  Gnesen  with  six  suffragans  who  were  increased  to 
fifteen  by  1079. 


106  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

There  remain  only  the  countries  on  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic,  whose  inhabitants  belonged  also  to  the  Slav  race  and 
were  added  at  a  later  period  to  the  Roman  Church;  and  when 
mention  has  been  made  of  Lithuania  and  Russia,  the  survey  of 
the  territory  occupied  by  medieval  Christianity  will  be  well- 
nigh  completed. 

A  very  important  feature  in  the  history  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  the  constant  rivalry  between  the  Germans  and  their 
eastern  neighbours;  and,  though  the  term  is  somewhat  loosely 
applied,  their  contest  with  the  Slavonic  peoples.  The  ambition 
of  the  Teutons  was  to  press  eastward  and  northward,  and, 
above  all  to  become  dominant  on  the  Baltic.  This  found  ex- 
pression in  the  two  military  monastic  orders — the  Teutonic, 
and  the  Knights  of  the  Sword.  For  a  long  period  the  influence 
of  the  Germans  in  imposing  their  civilization  on  the  Baltic 
provinces  was  widely  felt. 

The  Russian  Church  was  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Roman  See,  though  Catholic  writers  have  attempted  to  show 
that  for  a  considerable  time  it  was  Catholic  rather  than  Or- 
thodox. But  from  their  first  appearance  in  the  ninth  and  tenth 
centuries  the  Russians  were  closely  connected  with  Con- 
stantinople. The  name  Russian  is  supposed  to  be  derived  from 
the  Scandinavians,  who  under  Rurik  and  his  descendants 
ruled  the  Slavic  inhabitants.  They  frequently  threatened  Con- 
stantinople with  their  fleets;  but  ultimately,  under  Vladimir, 
who  was  baptized  in  998,  they  accepted  Christianity  as  the 
religion  of  the  State.  During  a  great  part  of  the  Middle  Ages 
(1 238-1464)  Russia  was  under  the  Tartars  of  the  Great  and 
Golden  Hordes,  who  were  heathens  and  afterwards  Moham- 
medans, but,  whatever  religion  they  professed,  they  displayed 
unusual  toleration  of  Christianity.  The  Roman  See  was  by 
no  means  unmindful  of  Russia;  and  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages  emissaries  were  sent  thither  to  induce  its  princes  to 
recognise  the  Catholic  Church.  But  the  Christianity  of  Russia 
was  always  oriental,  and  remained  outside  the  polity  of  the 
churches  of  the  West. 

During  the  period  of  the  Crusades  the  Latin  Church  had 


THE  CHURCH  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  1 07 

naturally  its  provinces  in  the  East  with  its  Patriarchate  at 
Jerusalem,  and,  after  the  capture  of  Constantinople  in  1204, 
the  Patriarch  there  was  a  Latin;  but  this  subject  of  Latin 
Christianity  in  the  East  deserves  fuller  treatment  else- 
where. 

The  Oriental  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  divided  be- 
tween the  four  Patriarchates  of  Constantinople,  Antioch,  Jeru- 
salem and  Alexandria.  This  arrangement  was  made  by  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  451.  But  after  the  inrush  of  the  Moham- 
medans, three  out  of  the  four  Patriarchates  were  torn  from  the 
Empire,  and  remained  under  Saracen  rule.  Constantinople, 
therefore,  virtually  stood  for  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East. 
Despite  the  fact  that  it  was  a  city  of  comparatively  new  founda- 
tion, lacking  all  the  venerable  traditions  of  Jerusalem  and 
Antioch,  the  cradles  of  Christianity,  and  of  Alexandria,  the  first 
great  home  of  learning  in  the  Church,  Constantinople  as  New 
Rome  held  the  primacy,  which  the  churches  outside  the  Empire 
and  under  Arab  dominion  could  not  dispute.  Besides  the  Patri- 
archates, Cyprus  formed  an  independent  (autocephalous)  prov- 
ince under  the  Archbishop  of  Constantia,  and  a  great  many 
bishoprics  enjoyed  freedom  from  metropolitan  authority.  The 
preponderating  influence  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  whereas  in  Gaul  the  boundaries  of  the 
old  provinces  remained  unchanged,  under  Constantinople  the 
importance  of  a  see  varied  with  the  political  status  of  the  city. 
The  Patriarchate  of  Constantinople  comprised  all  Asia  Minor, 
the  Islands  of  the  iEgean,  the  Balkan  peninsula,  including  the 
coast  of  the  Adriatic,  and  the  Peloponnesus.  It  also  extended 
along  the  Black  Sea  eastward  and  northward  to  the  Crimea. 
Antioch  had  also  an  extensive  jurisdiction  reaching  as  far  south 
as  the  ancient  territory  of  Moab  on  the  east  of  Jordan,  em- 
bracing Phoenicia,  Syria,  Euphratensia,  Osroene,  Armenia,  and 
even  Iberia.  Bosra,  Damascus,  Emesa,  Edessa,  Melitene  and 
Tarsus  were  among  its  Metropolitan  sees.  Jerusalem  was  really 
little  more  than  a  province,  and  its  Patriarch  presided  over 
the  Holy  Land  and  the  Arabian  deserts  to  the  south,  with  an 
archbishopric  at  the  old  Edomite  city  of  Petra.   Egypt   and 


108  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Ethiopia  were  in  the  Patriarchate  of  Alexandria,  which  in  its 
Christian  days  ranked  second  only  to  Rome. 

The  Roman  Church  in  the  days  of  Ignatius  enjoyed  what 
the  fervid  martyr  describes  as  a  "primacy  of  love,"  which  the 
force  of  events  made  into  an  overwhelming  predominance  at 
any  rate  in  the  Western  Church.  But  for  the  present  purpose 
the  vexed  question  of  the  rights  of  Rome  may  be  set  aside,  as 
one  object  of  this  chapter  is  to  state  the  kind  of  jurisdiction  the 
Roman  Church  exercised  in  the  Middle  Ages.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  great  as  was  the  position  of  the  Pope  in  these  cen- 
turies his  authority  was  not  merely  personal  but  represented 
the  elaborate  organization  over  which  he  presided.    It   is  not 
unimportant   that   in   the    first    letter    from    Rome,    that    of 
St.  Clement  to  the  Corinthians,  the  writer  does  not  mention 
his  own  name,   but  speaks  in    that    of  the   Roman  Church, 
and  that  Ignatius  addresses,  not  the  bishop,  but  the  Church 
at  Rome.  In  the  Decian  persecution  in  the  third  century  when 
Pope  Fabian  was  martyred,  and  no  successor  could  be  chosen, 
the  presbyters  at  once  took  the  initiative  in  addressing  Cyprian 
of  Carthage;  and  throughout  its  history  the  Papacy  has  been 
sustained  by  a  powerful  body  of  men,  trained  in  the  arts  of 
administration  and  rendered  the  more  efficient  by  a  long  tradi- 
tion of  government.  This  tends  to  explain  the  steady  continuity 
of  the  polity  of  the  Roman  See  and  how  it  was  that,  even  when 
the  Popes  individually  were  immoral,  incompetent,  or,  perhaps, 
merely   unfortunate,  they   did   the  institution   comparatively 
little  damage.  Of  course  circumstances  aided  the  immense  in- 
fluence of  the  Holy  See;  the  prestige  of  the  Church  founded  by 
the  joint  labours  of  the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  the  promise 
of  the  Head  of  the  Church  to  Peter  (Tu  es  Petrus),  the  glory 
of  the  City  as  the  capital  of  the  world,  its  precious  relics  of 
the  martyrs,  and,  it  must  be  added,  the  wisdom  displayed  in 
the  midst  of  the  trials  and  controversies  of  the  fourth  and  fol- 
lowing centuries.  To  the  newly  converted   barbarian  of  the 
North  the  name  of  Rome  appealed  with  irresistible  force;  and, 
when  his  princes  and  prelates  saw  the  City  with  their  eyes, 
their  impression  of  its  grandeur  and  sanctity  was  enhanced. 


THE  CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  1 09 

The  Church  of  Rome  was  presided  over  by  its  Bishop  to 
whom,  as  time  went  on,  was  reserved  the  name  of  Papa  or 
Pope,  a  title  happily  combining  reverence  with  affection.  In 
the  neighbourhood  of  Rome  were  other  bishops,  who  tended 
to  form  an  advisory  council  to  the  Pontiff.  Besides  this  from 
a  very  early  time  there  had  been  as  many  as  forty-six  churches 
in  Rome,  and  these  rapidly  multiplied.  The  presbyters  in  charge 
of  the  most  important  of  these  churches  were  men  of  consider- 
able weight  and  influence  whose  advice  was  naturally  sought. 
In  the  third  century  Pope  Fabian  divided  the  city  into  districts 
which  were  presided  over  by  officials  with  the  humble  rank 
of  deacons,  charged  with  administrative  duties,  which  gave 
them  even  more  power  than  the  priesthood,  and  even  the 
episcopate.  From  the  days  of  Gregory  I  the  whole  energy 
of  the  City  was  devoted  to  ecclesiastical  matters  with  the 
object  of  rendering  its  church  as  venerable  and  inspiring  as 
possible  to  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  Whether  it 
was  the  initiatory  rite  of  Baptism,  administered  at  Easter,  or 
the  coronation  of  an  Emperor,  nothing  was  omitted  which 
could  add  to  the  impressiveness  of  the  Roman  Church.  Nor 
were  the  arts  of  government  neglected.  Rome  was  rarely  dis- 
tinguished for  its  theologians,  its  orators,  or  even  its  saints. 
It  is  not  often  we  find,  even  in  Popes,  men  of  great  eminence; 
learning  was  sought  elsewhere.  But  the  Roman  clergy  had  a 
singular  aptitude  for  affairs  and  even  in  the  darkest  ages  the 
business  transacted  in  its  chancery  was  considerable. 

As  in  the  days  of  its  secular  glory,  ecclesiastical  Rome 
never  allowed  her  champions  to  conquer  for  themselves.  When 
they  annexed  a  new  Christian  province  they  were  expected  to 
do  so  for  Rome;  and  the  way  in  which  they  were  set  over  the 
country  they  had  converted  is  illustrative  of  this.  The  Arche- 
piscopate  of  the  West,  unlike  that  of  the  East,  was  of  ecclesi- 
astical, not  of  secular  appointment,  and  was  used  for  the  pur- 
pose of  binding  the  recipient  of  that  dignity  closer  to  the  Holy 
See. 

No  western  archbishop  was  allowed  to  exercise  his  function 
as  ruler  of  his  province  till  he  had  received  the  pallium  from 


IIO  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Rome.  For  this  purpose  he  had  to  go  in  person  to  the  Pope, 
unless  under  special  circumstances  it  was  sent  to  him.  He 
was  made,  therefore,  constantly  to  realise  that  he  owed  his 
powers  not  to  the  dignity  of  the  see,  but  to  the  favour  of  the 
Pope.  An  Archbishop  might  be  at  any  time  superseded  by  a 
special  emissary  from  Rome  holding  legatine  authority, 
and  this  could  even  be  bestowed  upon  one  of  his  suffragans. 
Powerful  therefore  as  were  many  of  the  great  prelates,  and 
independent  as  they  sometimes  showed  themselves  to  be, 
they   were  held   by   strong   ties   under  the  influence   of  the 

Roman  See. 

The  power  of  the  Roman  Church  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Pope  and  his  entourage,  which,  at  any  rate  by  the  eighth  cen- 
tury, resembled  the  court  of  a  Roman  Emperor.  Seven  great 
officials  ranking  ecclesiastically  as  sub-deacons,  but  held  in 
estimation  as  princes,  administered  the  affairs  of  the  papacy. 
The  primicerius  notariorum  was  in  charge  of  the  scrinium,  or 
Chancery.  During  a  vacancy  he  with  the  Archpresbyter  and 
Archdeacon  represented  the  Pope.  With  the  secundicerius  as 
under  secretary  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  government,  and 
these  offices  were  naturally  coveted  by  the  leading  citizens. 
The  other  ministers  were  the  arcarius,  or  treasurer,  the  sacel- 
larius,  or  paymaster,  the  protoscriniarius,  or  keeper  of  the 
archives,  the  primus  defensor,  or  chief  administrator  of  the 
farms  of  the  church,    and   the  nomenclator,  or  adminiculator, 
the  minister  of  grace  and  protector  of  the  poor:  these  great 
officers  were  considered  also  as  dignitaries  of  the  Empire.  Foreign 
nations  were  at   an  early  date  represented   by  their  schools. 
The  earliest  was  the  school  of  the  Angles,  founded  in  727  by  Ina, 
King  of  Wessex;  there  were  also  schools  of  Frisians,  Franks, 
Lombards,  and  Greeks.  There  was  even  a  "school  of  the  Jews," 
who  were  at  least  tolerated  in  Rome. 

The  name  Cardinal,  as  designating  an  office  which  pos- 
sesses princely  power  and  dignity,  was  originally  bestowed  on 
the  principal  clergy,  not  only  of  Rome,  but  of  other  churches. 
The  word,  derived  from  cardo,  a  hinge,  was  once  applied  to 
every  priest  attached  to  a  central  church,  but,  about  the  sixth 


THE  CHURCH  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  III 

century,  it  had  taken  the  significance  of  "principal,"  and  came 
to  be  applied  to  the  priest  in  charge  of  the  "titular"  churches  in 
Rome,  which  apparently  had  existed  from  very  early  times.  In 
the  ninth  century  Pope  John  VIII  entrusted  these  leading 
presbyters  with  the  supervision  and  discipline  of  the  clergy  in 
the  City.  To  them  especially  were  entrusted  the  services  in  the 
four  great  cemetery  churches — St.  Peter,  St.  Paul,  St.  Laurence 
and  St.  Maria  Maggiore.  A  list  of  "titular"  churches  in  the 
twelfth  century  has  been  preserved.1 

With  the  Cardinal  Priests  were  associated  Deacons,  who 
bore  the  same  honourable  appellation.  These  were  originally 
the  heads  of  the  "regions"  into  which  early  Christian  Rome  was 
divided.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  the  early  Church  in 
the  West,  as  in  that  of  the  East  today,  the  diaconate  was  not 
merely  a  step  towards  the  priesthood,  but  a  distinct  order  with 
special  administrative  and  liturgical  duties.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  the  Archdeacon,  as  head  of  the  college  of  deacons,  super- 
vised the  finances  of  the  see  and  the  discipline  of  the  clergy, 
and  was  next  to  the  Pope  the  most  influential  personage  in 
the  Church.  It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  the  word  cardinalis 
was  loosely  applied  to  some  inferior  clergy  connected  with  the 
Pope,  in  one  instance  "cardinal  acolytes"  are  mentioned. 

The  Cardinal  Bishops  were  seven,  holding  sees  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Rome,  known  as  "suburbicarican."  These 
were  Ostia,  Porto,  Albano,  Sabina,  Tusculum  (Frascati), 
Przeneste,  and  Santa  Rufina.  Calixtus  II  (1119-1124)  united 
Sancta  Rufina  with  Porto,  and  since  his  day  there  have  been 

only  six. 

Thus  the  Cardinals  were  originally  the  dignified  clergy  of 
the  Roman  church— each  order,  bishop,  priest,  and  deacon, 
being  represented.  Gradually  they  became  permanent  assessors 
with  the  Pope  in  the  regulation  of  the  business  of  the  Church, 
and  their  council  was  known  by  the  old  imperial  name  of  the 
"Consistory."  It  was  practically  a  papal  senate  sitting  to  ad- 
minister the  affairs  of  the  Church.  After  the  Reformation  the 
business   was   transacted    chiefly   by    permanent   committees 

1  Gregorovius,  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  II,  p.  44°  and  Vo1-  M,  P-  444- 


112  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

known  as  "Congregations";  but  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  Consis- 
tory's duties  were  administrative  and  judicial.  The  first  step, 
however,  in  the  recognition  of  the  Cardinalate  as  a  distinct 
order  was  the  transference  of  the  right  of  papal  election  to 
that  body  by  Nicholas  II  (1058-1061).  The  text  of  the  decree 
of  the  council  held  by  Nicholas  II  became  within  thirty  years 
of  its  promulgation  a  matter  of  dispute;  but  it  certainly  pro- 
vided that  the  Cardinal  Bishops  were  to  confer  and  select  a 
candidate,  whose  name  they  were  to  submit  to  the  other  Car- 
dinals for  election  as  Pope,  with  the  approval,  however,  of  the 
Roman  clergy  and  laity.  Alexander  III  placed  the  election  in 
the  hands  of  all  the  Cardinals.  After  the  time  of  this  Pope  it 
became  customary  for  Popes  to  bestow  the  Cardinalate  outside 
Rome;  and  great  ecclesiastics  throughout  Christendom  were  as 
a  special  favour  made  Cardinal  Priests,  a  titular  church  in 
Rome  being  assigned  to  them.  Till  the  fifteenth  century  it  was 
customary  for  an  Archbishop  or  Bishop  created  a  Cardinal 
to  resign  his  see;  but  since  the  Council  of  Constance  it  has 
been  possible  to  retain  it.  Thus  the  College  of  Cardinals  has 
become  representative  of  the  Churches  and  countries  under  the 
Roman  obedience.  The  Cardinals  in  the  later  Middle  Ages 
were  given  the  right  to  rank  as  equal  of  kings  and  princes,  and 
placed  above  all  metropolitans  and  even  patriarchs. 

In  early  times  a  representative  of  the  Papacy  was  sent  to 
Constantinople  to  look  after  the  interests  of  the  Roman  Church. 
Such  a  one  was  Gregory  the  Great,  who  spent  seven  years  in 
Constantinople  as  the  apocrisiarius,  or  responsalis  of  the 
Roman  See.  The  popes  communicated  with  the  churches  over 
which  their  jurisdiction  extended  through  "legates."  These 
played  an  important  part  in  the  administration  of  the  medieval 
Church;  and  the  question  whether  the  papal  representative 
should  be  received  or  not  was  frequently  raised  between  the 
Pope  and  the  European  princes. 

The  legates  came  under  the  categories  of  missi,  a  latere, 
and  nati.  The  missus  was  a  special  envoy  of  the  popes  de- 
spatched on  extraordinary  occasions.  The  legatus  a  latere  was 
a  more  important  personage.  He  was  always  a  Cardinal  and 


THE  CHURCH   EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST  113 

on  his  arrival  he  naturally  took  precedence  of  all  ecclesiastical 
authority  as  representing  the  Pope  in  person.  In  later  times 
when  a  Bishop  was  also  a  Cardinal  and  was  created  legatus  a 
latere  he  enjoyed  precedence  over  the  Metropolitan  himself. 
In  this  way  the  privileges  conferred  by  the  gift  of  the  pallium 
were  precarious  as  the  Pope  might  at  any  time  send  or  nomi- 
nate a  legatus  a  latere,  whose  authority,  however,  had  generally 
first  to  be  recognised  by  the  sovereign. 

Certain  Metropolitans  were  given  the  privilege  of  legatine 
powers  by  virtue  of  their  office.  The  Archbishops  of  Lyons, 
Treves,  Canterbury,  Toledo,  Salzburg,  etc.,  were  so  invested 
and  were  called  legati  nati.  But  in  practice  their  authority  as 
papal  representatives  was  not  great,  and  they  could,  as  has 
been  stated,  always  be  superseded  by  the  appointment  of  a 
legatus  a  latere. 

Such  was  the  medieval  Church  Empire,  wide  in  extent, 
united  in  doctrine,  organized  elaborately,  with  authority  grow- 
ing constantly  more  centralized.  Despite  the  political  divisions 
of  Europe  the  Church  remained  a  single  body,  super-national, 
with  its  own  rulers  and  its  universal  language.  If  we  visit  a 
great  cathedral  today  we  admire  the  vastness  of  the  building 
and  the  remains  which  surround  it,  and  are  astonished  at  the 
way  in  which  each  century  contributed  to  its  augmentation 
and  magnificence.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  most 
ornate  cathedral  in  our  days  is  but  a  shell  compared  with  what 
it  was  in  all  its  splendour  in  the  Middle  Ages,  with  its  vast 
army  of  monks  or  canons,  its  gorgeous  ceremonial,  its  priceless 
shrines,  its  princely  bishops,  many  surrounded  by  royal  state. 
Perhaps  nothing  in  England  is  more  typical  of  what  the 
Church  signified  in  the  Middle  Ages  than  the  cathedral  of 
Ely  in  England,  which  utterly  dominates  the  little  fenland  city 
clustered  around  its  towers.  Here  is  the  religious  as  contrasted 
with  the  secular  life,  when  the  Church  ruled  the  world.  In  the 
next  chapter  it  will  be  necessary  to  show  how  this  power  was 
welded  into  a  single  weapon  to  be  employed  for  the  Popes  who 
presided  over  Christendom,  and  later  the  story  must  be  told 
how  this  Empire  of  Church  declined  and  fell. 


114  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

AUTHORITIES 

There  are  some  excellent  maps  showing  the  church  provinces  of  Italy, 
France,  Spain  and  Germany  in  the  Atlas  zur  Kirchengeschichte,  by  Heussi 
and  Mulert.  Larger  maps  are  found  in  the  Historical  Atlas  of  Modern 
Europe,  edited  by  Reginald  Lane  Poole.  The  ones  most  used  here  are  (37) 
Germania  Sacra,  (19)  Anglia  Sacra,  (21)  Anglia  Monastica,  (75)  The  Four 
Eastern  Patriarchates,  (61)  Ecclesiastical  Organization  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula, 
(69)  Italia  Sacra,  (57)  Gallia  Sacra.  There  is  a  valuable  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  Slavs  in  the  Cambridge  Medieval  History,  Vol.  II,  Ch.  XIV,  by 

T.  Peisker.  ,    .     • 

There  is  a  very  thorough  investigation  in  the  bringing  of  the  relics  of 
St.  Clement  to  Rome  by  Cyril  and  Methodius  in  Lightfoot's  Apostolic 
Fathers  (St.  Clement  of  Rome).  For  the  claims  of  the  Papacy  based  on  the 
Lord's  words,  "Thou  art  Peter"  see  Denny,  Papalism  (very  hostile).  On 
the  origin  of  the  Cardinalate  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia  should  be  consulted. 
For  the  subject  of  the  titular  churches  Grisar,  History  of  Rome  and  the  Popes, 
the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  I,  and  Gregorovius'  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages 
(both  in  English  translations). 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PAPACY 

Need  of  the  Roman  Church  in  the  Xlth  Century  for  strong  Popes  —  Monasticism  — 
Reforms  of  the  Monasteries  —  Cluny  —  The  hermits  of  Fonte  Avellana  —  The 
Franconian  Emperors  — The  German  Popes  —  Hildebrand  —  St.  Leo  IX  — 
Simony  —  Clerical  celibacy  —  Leo's  journeys  in  the  North  —  The  Normans  — 
Schism  of  East  and  West  —  Prosperity  of  the  Byzantine  Empire  —  The  Emperor 
Constantine  IX  and  the  Patriarch  Michael  —  Greeks  declare  Latins  to  be  hereti- 
cal —  Leo  IX's  replies  to  the  Greeks  —  The  legates  at  Constantinople  —  Effects 
of  the  schism  —  Hildebrand  in  power  —  Early  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  — 
Justin  — Ambrose  and  Augustine  — Paschasius  Radbertus  — Ratramnus— Ber- 
engar— Papal  elections  —  The  married  clergy  —  Alexander  II  —  Imperial 
Antipopes  —  The  Pope  and  the  Normans  —  The  Houses  of  Lorraine  and  Tus- 
cany —  The  Empire  —  Election  of  Hildebrand  —  Breach  between  Henry  IV 
and  the  Papacy  —  Excommunication  of  Henry  IV  —  Canossa  —  Donation  of 
Matilda  — Guibert  Antipope  as  Clement  VII  —  Death  of  Henry  IV  —  Investi- 
ture dispute  arranged  —  Work  of  Hildebrand. 

The  achievement  of  the  days  of  darkness  was  to  build  up 
the  fabric  of  the  medieval  Church  of  the  West;  and  by  the 
middle  of  the  eleventh  century  the  wandering  of  the  nations 
had  virtually  ceased,  and  the  Church  was  mistress  of  the  whole 
of  Europe,  the  western  part  of  which  was  ready  enough  to 
acknowledge  the  Pope  as  its  spiritual  father.  But  the  Papacy 
was  in  the  position  of  being  influential  abroad,  and  weak  at 
home.  It  could  be  sure  of  a  respectful  hearing  from  England, 
Denmark,  or  Hungary;  but  in  Rome  itself  the  papal  throne 
was  frequently  insecure,  and  even  the  Holy  Father's  person  was 
liable  to  insult.  For,  from  the  day  on  which  the  Papacy  broke 
off  its  connection  with  the  Eastern  Emperors,  the  institution 
was  seldom  strong  enough  to  stand  alone.  It  was  only  occa- 
sionally that  powerful  pontiffs,  like  Nicolas  I  or  John  VIII, 
were  able  to  maintain  themselves  unaided;  for  as  a  rule  a  pope 
had  to  depend  upon  the  strongest  of  the  turbulent  barons  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Rome,  or,  at  best,  upon  the  Emperor. 
The  German  Popes,  appointed  by  the  Ottos  or  Henry  III,  were 

"5 


Il6  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

often  able  and  saintly  men;  but  they  did  not  really  supply  the 
need.  What  the  Church  demanded  was  a  pope  capable  of 
standing  alone,  responsible  to  the  Church  and  to  God  only, 
and  independent  of  secular  authority.  A  ruler,  moreover,  was 
required  who  would  inspire  awe  and  reverence  throughout 
Christendom  by  his  austere  self-discipline  and  saintly  life. 
The  virtues  demanded  were  not  those  of  common  life,  but 
those  nourished  by  the  severe  restraint  of  the  cloister.  Such 
men  the  eleventh  century  produced;  and  a  line  of  rulers  of  this 
type  long  continued  to  occupy  St.  Peter's  chair.  This  explains 
the  immense  strength  of  the  Papacy.  An  able  secular  ruler 
might  be  succeeded  by  a  weakling,  a  profligate,  and  a  child, 
whose  long  minority  would  be  a  signal  for  an  outburst  of 
anarchy;  but,  provided  the  election  was  free  and  untrammelled, 
the  new  Pope  was  sure  to  resemble  his  predecessor  in  being  a 
man  of  mature  years,  who  had  won  his  way  to  the  front  by  his 

ability. 

To  this  also  is  due  the  remarkable  endurance  of  the  Church- 
Empire  of  the  West,  which  maintained  its  unity  virtually  un- 
broken for  nearly  five  centuries;  whilst  the  kingdoms  and  prin- 
cipalities of  the  world  were  scenes  of  constant  convulsions. 
Kingdoms  rose  and  fell,  dynasties  disappeared,  the  greatest 
potentates  endured  the  strangest  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  and 
all  the  time  Rome  administered  the  Church,  and  her  emissaries 
carried  her  decrees  to  the  remotest  parts  of  the  known  earth. 
The  period  treated  of  in  this  chapter  covers  the  consolidation 
of  the  rule  of  the  Church  and  may  well  be  considered  as  the 
heroic  epoch  of  the  Papacy. 

The  strength  of  the  Church  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries  lay  in  the  monasteries,  in  which  alone  any  sort  of 
security  could  be  found  for  the  pursuit  of  Christian  virtue. 
Any  reform  of  the  clergy  was  therefore  bound  to  be  on  ascetic 
lines.  The  restoration  of  monastic  purity,  with  which  the  names 
of  St.  Benedict  of  Aniane,  St.  Dunstan,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, the  great  monastery  of  Cluny,  and  St.  Peter  Damian  are 
connected,  had  been  long  going  on,  and  was  about  to  be  felt 
in  the  Papacy.  The  ascendancy  of  monasticism  was  marked  by 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  117 

the  type  of  men  who  rose  to  power  in  the  Church,  stern  as- 
cetics, uncompromising  upholders  of  the  rights  of  their  order, 
divorced  more  than  the  priests  and  bishops  of  former  days  from 
the  ordinary  human  sympathies  of  life.  It  was  an  iron  age  and 
demanded  men  of  iron  to  rule  it;  and  the  churchman  was  no 
match  for  the  warrior  if  he  could  not  oppose  to  the  discipline 
of  arms  the  stern  training  of  the  cloister.  Spiritual  weapons  had 
to  be  used  as  relentlessly  as  the  carnal  sword,  and  these  could 
only  be  employed  by  men  whose  austerity  impressed  their 
opponents  with  awe.  Moreover,  the  Church  could  no  longer  be 
the  instrument  of  the  secular  state,  but  demanded  freedom  of 
action  untrammelled  by  worldly  authority.  The  problem  was  how 
to  maintain  the  requisite  independence,  and  yet  to  retain  the 
enormous  wealth  and  power  which  had  been  lavished  upon 
the  clergy. 

The  men  and  the  spirit  requisite  for  the  work  of  reviving  the 
honour  of  the  Church  were  produced  by  the  reform  of  the 
monasteries,  the  only  sources  of  spiritual  power  during  the 
darkest  period  of  Christianity.  True,  monasteries  degenerated, 
and  zeal  cooled,  but  the  institution  possessed  inherent  vitality 
and  powers  of  recuperation.  The  most  famous  and  always  the 
dominant  rule  was  that  of  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia,  who,  though 
he  never  contemplated  establishing  his  laws  outside  the  mon- 
asteries which  he  himself  founded  in  Italy  numbering  fourteen, 
including  the  great  houses  of  Subiaco  and  Monte  Cassino, 
was  eventually  recognised  as  the  monastic  legislator  of  the 
West.  It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  Benedictine  rule  was  a 
model  of  wise  discretion  as  a  guide  to  monastic  life.  It  pre- 
scribed no  arduous  penances,  its  choir  services  left  the  monks 
time  for  work,  and  eventually  for  study,  and  it  never  aimed 
at  centralisation,  but  left  each  of  its  abbeys  free  to  work  out 
its  own  system.  However,  monasticism  decayed,  till  in  the 
ninth  century  another  St.  Benedict — of  Aniane — who  enjoyed 
the  friendship  of  Louis  the  Pious,  endeavoured  to  make  the 
discipline  more  exacting  and  to  bring  his  group  of  monasteries 
under  a  superior  abbot;  but  his  scheme  of  reform  ended  with 
his  death,  and  remained  in  abeyance  till  the  tenth  century. 


Il8  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  910,  William  the  Pious,  Count  of  Auverne  and  Duke  of 
Aquitaine,  founded  the  monastery  of  Cluny  and  committed 
it  to  the  charge  of  its  first  Abbot,  St.  Berno.  Under  a  succession 
of  able  rulers,  almost  unbroken  for  more  than  two  centuries, 
Cluny  became  the  model  for  other  monasteries,  especially  in 
France,  and  among  the  many  houses  which  embraced  its  rule 
were  the  two  original  Benedictine  ones  of  Subiaco  and  Monte 
Cassino.  The  rule  lacked  the  freedom  of  the  ancient  laws  of 
the  first  Benedict:  it  did  not  insist  as  he  had  done  on  manual 
labour,  but  made  the  choir  services  almost  constant.  The 
Cluniacs  were  under  the  control  of  the  great  Abbey,  whose 
church  was  the  largest  in  Western  Europe,  and  the  "daughters 
of  Cluny"  were  to  be  found  throughout  France,  and,  after  the 
Conquest,  in  a  few  places  in  England.  Even  where  this  rule 
was  not  embraced  an  extraordinary  impulse  was  given  by  it  to 
Benedictine  monasticism.  In  the  days  of  the  restoration  of  the 
Papacy  in  the  eleventh  century,  Cluny  became  a  veritable 
nursery  of  great  Popes. 

But  the  hermits  were  destined  to  play  a  part  as  well  as 
the  Coenobite  monks;  and  one  of  the  most  prominent  of, the 
reformers  was  the  stern  mystic  St.  Peter  Damiani.  At  Fonte 
Avellana,  in  the  Apennines  near  to  Gubbio,  a  body  of  solitaries 
established  themselves  at  the  close  of  the  tenth  century,  and 
astonished  the  world  by  the  severity  of  their  discipline,  the 
multiplicity  of  their  fasts,  and  the  extraordinary  ingenuity 
with  which  they  devised  tortures  for  themselves.  The  most 
famous  of  these  religious  athletes  was  St.  Dominic  Loricatus, 
so  called  because  he  wore  armour  on  his  naked  body.  These 
hermits  were  preeminently  skilled  in  the  use  of  the  "discipline," 
which  they  are  credited  with  having  introduced,  and  lashed 
themselves  remorselessly.  The  performances  of  St.  Dominic  in 
this  self-inflicted  punishment  moved  even  Peter  Damiani  to 
despairing  emulation.  It  was  customary  to  scourge  oneself  with 
a  thousand  lashes  whilst  reciting  thirty  psalms,  that  is  to  say 
with  five  thousand  for  the  whole  Psalter.  One  Lent  Dominic 
accomplished  two  hundred  and  forty  Psalters  with  the  full 
compliment  of  lashes.  If  these  self  tortures  move  in  a  modern 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF   PAPACY  119 

man  a  feeling  of  contemptuous  pity,  it  is  well  to  remember  that 
some  of  these  hermits  were  far  from  being  useless  ascetics; 
and  that  Peter  Damiani,  their  Prior,  was  one  of  the  leading 
minds  in  his  day;  nor  can  the  Middle  Ages  be  understood  unless 
these  facts  be  taken  into  account.  But  it  need  cause  no  surprise 
that  men  who  were  thus  unsparing  of  themselves,  should  have 
been  absolutely  relentless  in  carrying  through  reforms,  which 
they  believed  were  necessary  to  save  the  world  from  the 
power  of  Satan. 

With  Henry  II  the  last  representative  of  the  family  of 
the  Ottos  died  out,  and  the  Empire  fell  to  the  Franconian  or 
Salian  house,  the  first  of  whom  was  Conrad  II,  the  Salic,  a 
vigorous  and  able  prince,  succeeded  in  1039  by  his  son  Henry 
III,  who  in  1046,  as  we  have  seen,  put  an  end  to  the  scandalous 
papal  rule  of  Benedict  IX. 

There  followed  a  succession  of  popes  virtually  the  nominees 
of  the  German  Caesar,  men  of  exemplary  lives  but  as  a  rule 
occupying  the  pontifical  throne  for  brief  periods.  There  were 
no  less  than  seven  popes  in  fifteen  years,  the  most  important 
of  whom,  St.  Leo  IX,  reigned  for  five. 

The  first  of  these  popes  was  Suidger,  Bishop  of  Bamberg, 
who  took  the  name  of  Clement  II  and  crowned  Henry  III. 
Never  before  since  the  days  of  the  Byzantine  rule  had  the 
chair  been  occupied,  save  on  two  occasions,  by  other  than 
an  Italian. 

Indeed  it  may  here  be  said  that  the  appointment  of  northern 
ecclesiastics  as  Popes  generally  proved  disastrous,  and  hitherto, 
even  when  a  virtuous  and  well  intentioned  Emperor  inter- 
vened to  reform  the  Roman  Church,  his  efforts  proved  at  best 
transitory.  This  was  finally  demonstrated  in  the  German  Popes 
of  this  century,  men  of  high  character  but  unsuited  to  the 
situation;  and  it  became  clear  that  to  retain  its  position  as 
arbiter  of  Western  Christendom  the  reform  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  must  come  from  within. 

At  this  juncture  the  influence  began  to  be  felt  of  one  whose 
commanding  personality  was  destined  to  dominate  Europe  till 
the  day  of  his  death  in  1085,  first  as  the  power  behind  the  throne, 


120  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  then  from  1073  as  Pope.  This  man's  work  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  the  medieval  hierarchy  in  all  its  power  and  splendor. 
Born  of  obscure  parentage,  insignificant  in  appearance,  owing 
everything  to  his  genius  and  force  of  character,  Hildebrand, 
afterwards  St.  Gregory  VII,  may  well  be  considered  the  Na- 
poleon of  the  Papacy. 

He  first  appears  as  the  friend  and  fellow  exile  of  Gregory 
VI,  the  Pope  who,  probably  actuated  by  a  pure  motive,  and 
certainly  with  the  approval  of  Peter  Damiani,  bought  the 
scandalous  Benedict  IX  out  of  the  Papacy.  When  Henry  III 
arrived  in  Rome  Gregory  IV  admitted  that  he  had  been  guilty 
of  Simony  and  resigned  without  a  murmur,  accepting  banish- 
ment from  the  City.  Whether  Hildebrand  was  ever  a  monk 
is  an  open  question.  His  enemies  accuse  him  as  being  a  "bad 
monk"  who  had  left  his  cloister,  and  his  admirers  connect  him 
with  the  great  monastery  of  Cluny  which  he  visited  in  the  pon- 
tificate of  Leo  IX.  Anyhow,  he  first  appears  conspicuously  on 
the  scene  in  connection  with  that  Pope. 

In  Leo  IX  appears  the  first  uncompromising   churchman 
to  mount  the  papal  throne  in  the  eleventh  century.  Of  illustrious 
and  even  royal  birth,  his  ambitions  and  outlook  were  purely 
those  of  the  ecclesiastic.  He  had  for  twenty  years  been  bishop 
of  Toul,  though  the  Emperor  Conrad,  his  cousin,  was  desirous 
that  he  should  hold  a  more  important  position.   But  in  his 
saintly  unworldliness  Bruno,  for  so  he  was  called,  preferred  to 
remain  bishop  of  an  insignificant  see.  His  kinsman,  Henry  III, 
at  the  request  of  the  Romans  designated  him  for  the  papal 
throne.    Bruno  entertained  the   suggestion   most   unwillingly, 
and  declined  entirely  to  accept  the  position  as  an  imperial 
nominee.  In  the  guise  of  a  pilgrim  in  company  with  Hilde- 
brand, he  approached  the  gates  of  the  City  and  asked  the 
people  to  accept  him  as  Pope.  He  was  enthroned  on  Feb.  12, 
1049,  and  reigned  for  five  years  till  April  19,  1054,  during  which 
brief  period  he  completely  changed  the  position  of  the  Papacy. 
The  great  events  which  characterised  his  pontificate  were  (1) 
The  Condemnation  of  (a)  Simony,  and  (b)   clerical  inconti- 
nence; (2)  Tours  in  Europe  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church; 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  121 

(3)  Troubles  with  the  Normans;   and   (4)    Breach  of  relations 
with  Michael  Caerularius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 

(1)   (a)  The  weakness  of  the  Church  was  the  scandalous 
traffic  in  clerical  dignities.  Down  to  the  humblest  office  money 
was  the  one   acknowledged   means  of  obtaining  preferment. 
The  Papacy,  as  has  been  shown,  was  not  exempt  from  the 
evil,  nor  was  it  ever  completely  eradicated  from  the  Church. 
But  in  the  eleventh  century  Simony  stood  in  the  way  of  all 
reform  in  the  direction  desired  by  the  stricter  clerical  party.  A 
clergy  who  had  notoriously  bought  their  offices  could  not  be 
free  from  the  powerful  patrons  who  had  put  them  into  these 
positions,  nor  could  they  hope  to  enjoy  the  respect  of  their 
people.  Nor  was  the  definition  of  Simony  confined  to  the  mon- 
etary transaction  which  procured  the  presentation  of  a  benefice. 
Later  Hildebrand,  as  Gregory  VII,  recognised  three  species  of 
the  crime.  There  was  the  material  advantage  by  which  a  man 
paid  in  money  or  property  {munus  a  manu) ;  the  pledge  to  sup- 
port the  patron  by  approving  his  actions  {munus  a  lingua); 
and  the  inducement  of  promising  to  pay  him  honour  and  undue 
service   {munus  ab  obsequio).  Thus  the  object  of  legislation 
against  Simony  was  to  make  each  cleric  able  to  discharge  his 
office  unfettered  by  any  obligation  to  the  patron,  and  to  give 
the  patron  no  excuse  for  not  appointing  the  best  man.   Of 
course,  in  theory  positions  like  bishoprics  and  abbacies  were 
elective,  but  in  the  chaos  of  the  time  free  elections  were  as 
impossible  throughout  Europe  as  they  had  long  been  in  Rome; 
and  even  in  the  freest  election  bribery  was  not  inconceivable. 
At  his  councils  at  Rome  and  Reims,  Leo  forced  Simony  to  be 
publicly  condemned   and   thus  paved  the  way  for  the  fierce 
controversy  about  investiture  in  the  days  of  his  successor. 

(b)  Closely  bound  up  with  Simony  was  the  more  difficult 
question  of  a  celibate  clergy.  A  married  priest  places  himself 
in  the  power  of  his  master,  be  he  emperor,  king,  or  feudal 
lord.  Not  only  so,  but  if  he  holds  a  rich  benefice  and  is  himself 
a  man  of  birth  and  influence  it  tends  to  the  creation  of  heredi- 
tary ecclesiastical  principalities,  in  which  spiritual  fitness  is 
liable  to  disappear  before  temporal  considerations.  Still  more 


122  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

was  the  idea  of  a  married  priesthood  repugnant  to  the  stern 
monastic  principles  which  dominated  the  Western  Church  of 
the  age.  But  the  question  was  incapable  of  a  summary  settle- 
ment. In  the  East  marriage  was  permitted  and  even  insisted 
upon  in  parish  priests  before  ordination;  though  the  episcopate 
and  higher  dignities  were  accessible  only  to  monks.  In  the 
West  many  clergy  lived  more  or  less  openly  and  blamelessly 
with  their  wives.  On  the  other  hand,  human  nature  was  too 
strong  for  those  who  dare  not  accept  the  marriage  tie  for  fear 
of  censure,  and  gross  and  open  immorality  was  the  deplorable 
result.  Damiani  determined  freely  to  expose  the  evils  of  the 
time,  not  in  the  interest  of  legal  marriage,  but  by  the  stern 
repression  of  all  incontinence  under  the  most  dreadful  penal- 
ties. He  published  a  book  with  the  fearful  title  of  Gomorrhianus, 
in  which  he  laid  bare  the  terrible  offences  in  which  the  clergy 
had  little  scruple  in  indulging  and  offered  it  to  Leo  IX.  Leo 
accepted  the  work,  but  not  all  its  inferences.  A  man  of  stainless 
life  and  a  personal  austerity,  which  caused  him  to  be  regarded 
as  a  saint  even  in  his  lifetime,  Leo  as  a  high  born  noble  had 
mixed  in  camps  and  courts,  and  had  been  engaged  in  diplo- 
matic duties.  He  was  not  therefore  disposed  to  listen  to  the 
ravings  of  a  saint  who  was  a  hermit  by  choice,  spending  days 
in  the  recitation  of  psalms  and  self-inflicted  flagellations.  But 
at  Rome  and  elsewhere  the  Pope  condemned  clerical  marriage 
and  pronounced  all  sacramental  acts  performed  by  simoniacal 
or  married  priests  as  null  and  void. 

(2)  In  his  short  pontificate  of  five  years  Leo  IX  proved 
himself  an  indefatigable  traveller,  constantly  crossing  the  Alps 
in  his  endeavours  to  impress  Europe  with  an  overwhelming 
sense  of  the  preeminent  dignity  of  the  Roman  See.  He  was  a 
zealous  collector  and  translator  of  relics,  and  an  inflexible 
asserter  of  papal  authority.  As  Pope  he  became  more  and  more 
Italian  and  ultramontane  in  the  conception  of  his  office.  Con- 
secrated early  in  1049,  he  held  a  synod  in  the  Lateran,  and 
after  placing  Hildebrand  in  charge  of  the  disordered  finances 
of  the  See,  he  started  for  Germany.  By  the  early  summer  he 
reached    Cologne   where   he   was    magnificently    received    by 


THE   REVIVAL  AND   REORGANIZATION  OF   PAPACY  1 23 

Archbishop  Herman  whom  he  made  Chancellor  of  the  Apostolic 
See.  He  reduced  to  utter  subjection  Godfrey  of  Lorraine,  who 
had  rebelled  against  the  Emperor  Henry  III,  and  then  crossed 
into  France  to  hold  a  synod  at  Reims  and  to  attend  to  the  trans- 
lation of  the  patron  saint  Remigius.  He  upheld  the  dignity  of 
Rome  inflexibly,  forced  the  prelates  of  the  North  to  acknowl- 
edge its  supremacy  without  question,  and  humbled  the  pride 
of  the  Spanish  archbishop  of  Compostella,  who  had  claimed 
for  his  see  the  title  of  "Apostolic."  Three  times  did  he  cross  the 
Alps,  not  always  to  find  the  German  prelates  in  a  submissive 
mood;  but  miracles  marked  his  progress,  and  even  in  his  life- 
time he  was  revered  as  a  saint. 

(3)  The  Normans  had  now  made  their  power  felt  in  southern 
Italy  and  Sicily  and  Leo  had  to  come  into  conflict  with  that 
formidable  people,  who  were  destined  to  have  no  small  part 
in  completing  the  work  of  making  the  Pope  supreme  in  the 
West.  The  conflict  with  them  resulted  in  the  humiliation  of 
Leo  IX,  but  in  the  ultimate  advantage  of  the  Papacy. 

After  their  settlement  in  France  in  the  tenth  century  the 
adventurous  Normans  came  to  Italy  as  mercenaries  of  the 
Byzantines.  They  soon,  however,  set  up  a  principality  of  their 
own  which  passed  into  the  hands  of  Robert  Guiscard,  the  son 
of  Tancred  of  Hauteville,  a  baron  of  Coutances.  The  dispute 
between  the  Papacy  and  the  new  Lords  of  Apulia  was  caused 
by  the  cession  of  the  city  of  Benevento  by  the  emperor  to  Leo 
IX  in  exchange  for  his  rights  over  a  German  see.  The  Pope, 
it  must  be  recollected,  was  not  only  a  saintly  ecclesiastic,  de- 
voted to  the  spiritual  interest  of  his  order,  but  had  been 
brought  up  in  a  family  inured  to  arms,  and  as  Bishop  of  Toul 
had  led  his  vassals  to  the  aid  of  the  Emperor.  With  a  con- 
siderable force  he  advanced  against  the  Normans,  whose  puny 
frames  filled  the  Suabian  troops  with  contempt.  But  the  battle 
of  Cividale,  1053,  convinced  the  world  of  the  invincibility  of 
the  Norman  cavalry.  Leo's  Germans  died  at  their  post,  the  rest 
of  the  papal  army  fled  in  confusion.  The  Normans  were,  how- 
ever, as  pious  as  they  were  prudent.  They  fell  on  their  knees 
before  their  captive  and  treated  the  fallen  Pope  with  deep 


124  NTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

respect.  But  the  defeat  broke  Leo's  heart.  The  serious  party  of 
the  clergy,  Peter  Damiani  at  their  head,  blamed  Leo  for  his 
having  appealed  to  carnal  weapons,  and  the  Pope  died  in  the 
following  year.  Four  years  later,  on  August  23,  1059,  the  Nor- 
man Guiscard  was  recognised  by  Nicolas  II  as  Duke  of  Apulia 
and  Calabria  and  future  Lord  of  Sicily.  Thus  the  Normans 
became  the  vassals  of  the  Papacy,  and  the  most  valiant  and 
strenuous  protectors.  This  alliance  was  fraught  with  most 
momentous  consequences. 

(4)  But  Leo  IX's  reign  was  also  marked  by  the  final  sev- 
erance between  Byzantine  and  Papal  Christianity.  The  circum- 
stances under  which  this  occurred  are  somewhat  obscure,  and 
the  catastrophe  came  suddenly;  nor  does  its  importance  appear 
to  have  been  realised  by  any  contemporary  historian.  For 
many  years  the  relations  between  Rome  and  Constantinople 
had  been  by  no  means  unfriendly;  and  since  the  days  of  Photius 
there  had  only  been  occasionally  such  trifling  frictions  as 
were  natural  between  two  churches,  each  of  which  had  its  own 
peculiar  claims  to  preeminence,  and  differed  as  to  rites  and 
ceremonies.  But  even  so,  Pope  and  Patriarch  maintained  on 
the  whole  friendly  and  even  brotherly  relations,  and  neither 
seems  to  have  dreamed  of  considering  the  other  as  in  any  way 
departing  from  the  Faith.  The  Latin  rite  was  practiced  in 
Constantinople,  and  the  Greek  offices  were  freely  used  in 
dioceses  and  monasteries  under  the  Roman  obedience.  The 
controversy  was,  so  far  as  the  Greeks  were  concerned,  conducted 
on  the  same  lines  as  the  Photian  dispute  and  the  assertions 
of  the  supremacy  of  Rome  by  Leo  IX  were  much  the  same  as 
those  made  by  Nicolas  I  and  his  successors.  The  only  difference 
was  that  the  quarrel  about  Photius  arose  for  a  definite  reason, 
his  usurpation  of  the  patriarchal  throne,  and  ended  when  the 
cause  of  Rome's  indignation  was  no  longer  in  existence,  whereas 
the  controversy  in  Leo  IX's  day  came  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue 
and  became  a  permanent  reason  for  the  two  Churches  remain- 
ing apart.  Rightly  to  understand  it,  it  is  necessary  to  relate 
briefly  a  chapter  in  Byzantine  history. 

From  A.D.  975  to  1025  Basil  II  was  Emperor;  and  under 


THE   REVIVAL  AND   REORGANIZATION  OF   PAPACY  1 25 

him  the  ancient  glories  of  Rome  revived.  In  the  triumph  in 
which  he  celebrated  his  victories  he  was  hailed  by  the  mul- 
titude as  Slayer  of  Bulgars.  ''His  reign  was  the  culminating 
point,"  says  Finlay,  "of  Byzantine  greatness.  The  eagles  of 
Constantinople  flew  during  his  life,  in  a  long  career  of  victory, 
from  the  banks  of  the  Danube  to  those  of  the  Euphrates,  and 
from  the  mountains  of  Armenia  to  the  shores  of  Italy."  Basil's 
reign  was  succeeded  by  a  period  of  prosperity,  the  Emperors 
being  the  husbands  of  his  nieces,  Zoe  and  Theodora,  the 
daughters  of  his  brother  Constantine  VIII. 

In    1042,   after  many   revolutions   and   seditions   in   Con- 
stantinople, Zoe  gave  her  hand  to  Constantine  Monomachus, 
who,  as  ninth  of  his  name,  reigned  till  1055.  This  Emperor 
appears  to  have  been  a  man  of  good  natural  gifts  and  not  ill 
disposed,  but  without  sufficient  strength  of  character  really  to 
rule,  especially  when  owing  his  position  to  the  preference  of 
his  elderly  wife.  In  fact  the  power  of  this  Emperor  was  over- 
shadowed by  that  of  the  Patriarch,  a  man  of  stern  character 
and  insatiable  ambition,  combined  with  skill  in  utilising  the 
popular  prejudices  to  further  his  cause.   Michael  Cerularius 
came  of  a  great  family,  and  had  once  been  a  candidate  for  the 
Empire.  In  the  Church  he  displayed  the  qualities  of  a  politic 
and  grasping  temporal  ruler.  He  seems  to  have  regarded  the 
Papacy  as  a  king  might  regard  a  neighbouring  state  with  which 
it  was  desirable  to  pick  a  quarrel;  and  though  there  was  ap- 
parently no  pretext  for  one,  Cerularius  was  sure  that  once  it 
arose  he  would  have  the  support  of  his  people.  The  Katapan, 
Argyros,  who  commanded  the  Byzantine  forces  in  Southern 
Italy,  was  working  with  the  Pope  against  the  Normans  in 
the  interests  of  the  Empire.  The  Patriarch  regarded  him  as  an 
enemy,  and  when  the  Normans  won  the  battle  of  Cividale,  and 
the  Pope  was  their  prisoner  it  seemed  a  favourable  opportunity 
for  Constantinople  to  strike  a  blow  at  its  rival.   It  was  an 
oblique  one.  The  Bulgarian  Church  since  the  victories  of  Basil 
II  was  bound  closer  than  ever  to  the  Patriarchate  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Acrida,  its  metropolitan  see,  was  a  Greek  named 
Leo.  Evidently  he  was  prompted   by   Michael   Cerularius  to 


126  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

write  to  the  Bishop  of  Trani  inviting  him  to  abandon  two 
Latin  usages  as  uncatholic,  namely,  the  employment  of  un- 
leavened bread  in  the  Eucharist,  and  fasting  on  Saturday. 
These,  Leo  said,  savoured  of  Judaism  and  should  be  given 
up.  The  letter  was  addressed  "to  the  Bishop  of  Trani,  all 
the  bishops  of  the  Franks,  and  the  most  reverend  the 
Pope." 

This  attack  was  followed  up  by  a  more  vigorous  paper  by 
Nicetas  Stethatos,  a  monk  of  the  Studium,  in  which  all  the 
practices  of  the  Latins  objectionable  to  the  Greeks  were  at- 
tacked. The  insertion  of  the  word  Filioque  in  the  Creed  and  the 
Latin  prohibition  of  marriage  of  priests  being  added  to  the 
charges  of  Leo.  These  "horrible  infirmities"  the  monk  attributes 
to  perversions  of  the  faith  which  had  been  deliberately  en- 
couraged by  Jewish  influence  in  Rome.  The  patriarch  next 
openly  declared  war  by  closing  all  the  churches  in  Constanti- 
nople in  which  the  Latin  rite  was  celebrated.  As  it  is  generally 
supposed  that  the  rupture  was  due  solely  to  the  insertion  of 
the  word  Filioque  in  the  Latin  Creed,  it  may  be  well  here  to 
remark  that,  though  this  was  made  a  grievance,  though  it  was 
the  subject  of  debate  whenever  reunion  was  discussed,  the  great 
charge  against  the  Latins  was  that  they  were  guilty  of  heresy 
because  they  used  unleavened  bread  (azems)  in  the  Eucharist; 
for  this  was  not  merely  regarded  as  an  innovation  in  discipline 
and  practice,  but  as  a  heresy,  inasmuch  as  to  make  Christ  in 
the  Sacrament  of  unleavened  bread  was  to  be  guilty  of  the 
error  of  Appollinarius,  who  denied  the  Saviour  a  human  soul. 
Unleavened  bread  was,  in  fact,  "soulless  bread."  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  charges  made  against  the  Latins  had  all  been  ad- 
vanced by  Photius,  when  the  Romans  condemned  his  usurpa- 
tion of  the  Chair  of  Ignatius,  and  had  hardly  troubled  the  two 
Churches  since  the  schism  had  been  healed. 

Leo's  reply  was  an  echo  of  the  language  of  Nicolas  I  to 
Photius.  Disdaining  the  charges  of  heresy,  the  Pope  asserted 
in  the  most  uncompromising  fashion  the  absolute  supremacy 
of  Rome  over  all  other  sees.  This  language  was  most  unac- 
ceptable to  all  the  Easterns.  Peter  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch, 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  1 27 

who  was  no  admirer  of  Michael  Cerularius,  could  not  accept 
the  unqualified  primacy  of  Rome,  and  in  language  which  re- 
calls the  arguments  of  Irenaeus  for  four  Gospels  he  declares  the 
five  Patriarchates  of  Rome,  Constantinople,  Alexandria, 
Antioch  and  Jerusalem  to  be  as  necessary  to  the  Church  as  are 
the  five  senses  to  the  body. 

The  Pope  sent  three  legates  to  Constantinople  with  letters 
addressed,  not  to  the  patriarch,  but  to  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine  IX.  They  were  Cardinal  Humbert,  Frederick  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Church  (afterwards  Stephen  IX),  and  Peter, 
who  had  been  formerly  Archbishop  of  Amain.  The  papal  letters 
are  dated  January  24,  1054,  and  Leo  died  on  the  19th  of  April 
following.  The  Emperor  seems  to  have  done  what  he  could  to 
give  the  legates  an  honourable  reception.  The  monk  Nicetas  was 
compelled  to  express  regret  for  his  treatise  against  the  Roman 
See.  But  Michael  was  unpracticable.  He  refused  to  hold  con- 
versation with  the  legates  and  was  evidently  preparing  to  con- 
vene an  imposing  Synod  against  them.  On  July  16th  they  an- 
ticipated him  by  solemnly  placing  a  bull  excommunicating 
Michael  Cerularius  on  the  altar  of  St.  Sophia.  The  Emperor 
tried  once  more  to  mediate,  but  Michael  was  inexorable  and 
the  rupture  was  complete.  The  papal  throne  was  actually 
vacant  when  this  momentous  event  occurred. 

Hereafter  it  will  be  necessary  to  discuss  the  many  attempts 
made  to  heal  this  unhappy  schism.  It  was  caused  by  the  bold 
bid  by  the  Patriarch  for  supreme  power.  Michael  Cerularius 
had  in  his  youth  been  almost  raised  to  the  imperial  throne.  He 
aspired  in  mature  life  to  reign  over  the  world  from  the  seat  of 
the  Patriarch.  By  his  defiance  of  Rome  he  had  united  the 
Eastern  Church  as  it  had  never  been  united  before,  as  his 
attack  on  Western  innovations  and  papal  arrogance  was  en- 
tirely in  accordance  with  popular  feeling.  He  was,  as  the  philoso- 
pher Psellus  calls  him,  a  "democrat,"  and  he  perfectly  understood 
how  to  use  the  prejudices  of  the  people  for  his  own  ends.  His 
success,  a  generation  before  the  crusades  and  on  the  eve  of  the 
first  Turkish  inroad  into  Asia  Minor,  proved  fatal  to  the  pro- 
gress of  a  divided  medieval  Christianity. 


128  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Three  short  pontificates  followed  that  of  Leo  IX,  those  of 
Victor  II,  Stephen  IX,  and  Nicholas  II.  The  Emperor  Henry  III 
died  in  October,  1056,  leaving  his  infant  heir  Henry  IV  under 
the  guardianship  of  the  Pope.  There  was  now  no  Emperor  to  con- 
trol the  papal  elections  or  interfere  with  the  policy  of  the  Roman 
Church.  Stephen  IX,  of  the  anti-imperial  house  of  Lorraine, 
was  at  the  time  of  his  election  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino,  the 
birthplace  of  Benedictine  monasticism,  a  position  which  he  re- 
tained as  Pope.  One  of  the  most  important  acts  of  his  brief 
pontificate  was  to  nominate  Peter  Damiani  Cardinal  Bishop 
of  Ostia,  thereby  ranging  himself  definitely  on  the  side  of  the 
extreme  wing  of  the  monastic  party. 

What  followed  the  death  of  Stephen  (March  29,  1058)  is 
instructive  in  showing  that  the  old  power  and  ambition  of  the 
Counts  of  Tusculum  had  still  survived.  The  Cardinal  Bishop  of 
Velletri,  John  Mincius,  of  the  family  of  Crescentius,  was  hastily 
elected  and  placed  in  the  papal  chair.  He  was  evidently  not  a  man 
of  evil  repute,  for  Stephen  IX  had  considered  him  as  a  possible 
successor,  but  under  him  the  old  days  of  anarchy  seemed 
likely  to  revive.  He  took  the  family  papal  name  of  Benedict  X. 
At  any  rate  the  party  of  reform  was  alarmed,  and,  led  by  Hil- 
debrand,  they  induced  the  Empress  Agnes,  widow  of  Henry 
III,  to  allow  the  election  of  a  Burgundian  named  Gerard, 
Archbishop  of  Florence,  who  reigned  as  Nicolas  II.  The  new 
Pope  obtained  the  aid  of  Robert  Guiscard,  of  the  Normans  of 
Southern  Italy  and  also  of  the  powerful  house  of  Lorraine. 
Benedict  X  abdicated  in  favour  of  Nicolas  II  and  the  influence 
of  the  local  nobility  was  broken. 

But  the  above  mentioned  Popes,  though  all  noble  by  origin 
and  far  from  contemptible  in  character,  are  mere  names  com- 
pared to  the  great  Cardinal  Deacon  who  for  a  generation  di- 
rected the  policy  of  the  Holy  See.  From  the  death  of  Leo  IX, 
in  1054,  till  his  own  death  as  Gregory  VII  in  1085,  the  real 
Pope  was  Hildebrand.  The  resignation  of  Benedict  X  was  al- 
most entirely  due  to  his  influence;  and  whether  true  or  not,  the 
story,  that  when  Benedict  X  died,  Hildebrand  expressed  his 
sorrow  for  his  action  in  assisting  at  the  humiliating  deposition 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  1 29 

of  this  Pope,  is  typical  of  the  man's  stern  sense  of  justice  to 
himself,  as  well  as  to  the  rest  of  mankind. 

Three  events  mark  the  influence  of  Hildebrand,  and  these 
determined  the  future  of  the  Church:  (1)  the  condemnation  of 
Berengar  of  Tours  for  his  views  of  the  Eucharistic  sacrifice, 
(2)  the  legislation  affecting  papal  election,  (3)  the  subjugation 
of  the  married  clergy  of  Milan. 

(1)  The  great  doctrine,  which  in  the  primitive  Church 
was  never  a  cause  of  serious  dispute,  was  the  one  concerning 
the  presence  of  the  Saviour  in  the  Supper  which  he  had  or- 
dained. Even  when  different  explanations  were  given,  it  was  be- 
yond controversy  that  the  words  "This  is  my  Body"  and  "This 
is  my  Blood"  must  be  taken  as  meaning  what  they  implied. 
That  the  faithful  received  these  holy  mysteries  when  they  par- 
took of  the  consecrated  elements  there  was  no  doubt.  But  at 
the  same  time  when  it  was  necessary  to  use  with  precision 
philosophical  terms  like  "substance,"  "nature"  and  the  like 
about  the  Trinity  to  express  the  relation  of  one  "person"  to 
another,  or  about  the  twofold  nature  of  our  Lord  as  God  and 
Man,  it  was  but  natural  that  similar  language  should  be  ap- 
plied to  the  Eucharist,  in  which  the  visible  bread  and  wine 
became  the  means  of  making  believers  partakers  of  the  invisible 
Body  and  Blood  of  their  Redeemer.  In  the  second  century  the 
sacrament  was  explained  in  simple  words  by  Justin  Martyr: 

"For  not  as  common  bread  or  common  drink  do  we  receive 
these;  but  like  as  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour  being  made  flesh 
through  the  word  of  God  had  both  flesh  and  blood  for  our  salva- 
tion, so  also  were  we  taught  that  the  food  for  which  thanks  are 
given  by  the  prayer  of  his  word,  and  by  which  our  blood  and 
fleshly  conversion  are  nourished,  is  both  the  flesh  and  blood  of 
that  Jesus,  who  was  made  flesh." 

Two  centuries  later  we  find  the  Greek  fathers  using  the 
terms  transmute  and  transelementize,  but  not  for  centuries 
do  we  meet  with  the  more  famous  word  transubstantiation. 
There  were  two  trends  of  thought  in  regard  to  the  Eucharistic 
gift  in  the  Western  Church,  initiated  by  St.  Ambrose  and  St. 
Augustine    respectively.   Both   acknowledged  the  presence  of 


130  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  Lord;  but  Ambrose  dwelt  most  on  the  priestly  aspect  of 
the  miracle,  and  Augustine  regarded  it  as  one  of  faith.  This 
difference  of  opinion  was  not  fundamentally  serious,  and  gave 
rise  to  no  controversy;  it  only  indicated  tendencies  which 
were  to  develop  later.  The  teaching  of  Ambrose  on  this  subject 
was  due,  as  was  much  of  his  doctrine,  to  Oriental  influence.  It 
was  not  till  840  that  Paschasius  Radbertus,  a  monk  of  Corbey, 
brought  the  matter  into  prominence  by  publishing  a  treatise 
on  the  Eucharistic  mystery,  in  which  he  asserted  the  Presence 
of  Christ  on  the  altar  in  terms  which  seemed  to  many  materi- 
alistic. He  was  answered  by  another  monk  of  Corbey  named 
Ratramnus,  who  was  supported  by  Eriugena:  these  two  in- 
clining to  the  Ambrosian  rather  than  the  Augustinian  side. 
The  controversy  slept  until  the  eleventh  century,  when  it  was 
revived  by  Berengar,  a  deacon  of  Tours,  one  of  the  great 
teachers  of  the  time,  who  may  have  numbered  St.  Bruno,  the 
founder  of  the  Carthusians,  among  his  disciples.  Of  his  doctrine 
this  much  may  be  said,  that  it  was  opposed  to  the  grossly 
materialistic  explanations  of  the  Presence  current  at  the  time, 
which  degraded  the  great  mystery  into  a  magical  conversion. 
In  his  endeavours  to  meet  this  error  Berengar  was  suspected 
of  denying  the  Presence  and  making  the  Eucharist  no  more 
than  a  commemoration.  He  made  several  recantations  and 
was  vigorously  opposed  by  Lanfranc,  Abbot  of  Bee,  and  later 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  To  refute  this  "heresy,"  Hildebrand 
was  sent  to  France,  and  seems  to  have  shown  a  real  liberality 
of  spirit  towards  Berengar,  defending  him  from  his  persecutors, 
whilst  himself  steadfastly  adhering  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church.  In  this  the  future  Pope  appears  to  have  exhibited  the 
best  traditions  of  Rome,  impartiality  in  the  midst  of  a  heated 
controversy,  and  unwillingness  to  deal  harshly  with  speculative 
error. 

(2)  In  early  days  the  churches  as  a  rule  elected  their  own 
bishops,  and  certainly  in  early  times  the  Roman  Christians 
chose  theirs  by  popular  vote.  As  has  been  indicated,  from  the 
seventh  century  there  was  no  little  interference  in  the  election 
from  the  outside.  First  the  Emperors  or  their  Exarchs  at  Ra- 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  131 

venna  had  to  sanction  the  election,  then  the  new  Frankish 
Caesars  claimed  the  same  right,  and,  with  the  fall  of  the  house 
of  Charles  the  Great,  the  nobles  presumed  to  nominate  their 
friend. s  When  this  scandal  reached  its  height,  the  Western 
Emperors  were  called  in  to  select  suitable  popes;  and  Henry 
III  exercised  a  sort  of  private  patronage,  till  his  death  in  1056. 
At  the  second  Lateran  Council,  held  in  1059  under  Nicolas  II, 
it  was  decreed  that  henceforward  the  Cardinal  Bishops  should 
select  a  candidate,  a  Roman  if  possible,  and  the  election  should 
be  confirmed  by  the  other  Cardinals  and  by  the  clergy  of 
Rome.  This  laid  the  foundation  of  the  power  of  the  Cardinalate 
and  paved  the  way  for  the  election  of  the  Pope  by  that  body 
in  conclave.  Its  immediate  result  was  to  reassert  the  right  of 
the  Romans  to  choose  their  own  Pope  and  to  put  an  end  to  any 
sort  of  lay  nomination.  It  was  in  fact  the  determination  of 
the  clerical  and  monastic  party,  headed  by  Hildebrand  and 
Peter  Damiani,  to  separate  the  Church  as  far  as  possible  from 
the  world  and  to  exalt  the  authority  of  the  Roman  See  over  all 
other  churches.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  Gerard,  Bishop  of 
Florence,  had  assumed  the  name  of  Nicolas  II,  as  his  policy 
tallied  with  that  of  Nicolas  the  Great. 

(3)  After  Nicolas  II's  death,  in  1061,  the  great  contest  with 
the  married  clergy  was  fought  out,  with  Milan  as  the  stage. 
Milan,  like  its  rival  Ravenna,  never  forgot  that  it  had  once  been 
the  capital  of  Italy  and  proudly  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
authority  of  Rome  over  its  affairs.  Its  Archbishops,  ever  mind- 
ful that  they  represented  no  less  a  person  than  St.  Ambrose, 
steadfastly  asserted  their  independence.  Milan  had  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  Lombards,  who  made  Pavia  their  capital;  but 
it  rose  from  its  ashes  in  the  ninth  century  under  the  fostering 
care  of  its  Archbishops,  especially  Anspert  (868-881)  and 
Heribert  (101 8-1045).  Heribert,  a  truly  magnificent  prelate 
and  statesman,  caused  Conrad  the  Salic  to  be  crowned  King  of 
Italy,  suppressed  the  power  of  his  rival  and  namesake  of  Ra- 
venna, withstood  the  military  forces  of  the  Empire,  and  finally 
died  amid  the  tears  of  the  people  of  Milan,  who  regarded  his 
memory  as  that  of  a  saint.  Like  most  of  his  clergy,  Heribert 


132  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

was  a  married  man;  for  the  priests  of  Milan  boasted  that  St. 
Ambrose  had  allowed  them  to  take  wives,  not  clandestinely, 
but  openly  by  "ring  and  dowry."  These  Lombard  priests,  more- 
over, were  considered  admirable  clergymen,  and  their  lives 
were  the  boast  of  the  province.  So  exasperating  was  this  to 
the  sterner  party  of  Hildebrand  and  Peter  Damiani  that  in 
their  judgment,  whilst  elsewhere  clerical  concubinage  was 
merely  sin,  the  married  priests  of  Milan  were  guilty  of  the  far 
graver  offence  of  heresy.  Strangely  enough  the  first  opponents 
of  Heribert  were  themselves  heretics,  the  followers  of  one 
Gerard,  who  seem  to  have  held  Manichaean  views  resembling 
those  of  the  Bogomils  and  of  the  Albigensians.  Heribert  dealt 
with  great  severity  towards  them;  and  as  one  of  their  tenets 
was  that  death  in  torment  was  the  chief  purification  from  sin, 
he  gratified  this  proclivity  by  burning  a  large  number  in  a  vast 
pyre  in  Milan. 

Heribert  was  succeeded  by  Guido,  a  man  of  less  force  of 
character,  and  under  him  the  storm  against  the  married  clergy 
broke  with  the  utmost  fury.  The  leaders  were  Ariald,  a  man  of 
humble  birth,  and  a  noble  named  Landulf.  But  behind  them 
was  Anselm,  Bishop  of  Lucca,  afterwards  Pope  Alexander  II, 
and  Peter  Damiani.  The  latter  by  his  eloquence  and  furious 
invectives,  secured  the  triumph  of  the  celibate  clergy.  The 
popular  voice  was  against  the  old  aristocratic  married  priest- 
hood, and  the  victorious  party  were  called  Patarines,  either 
because  they  belonged  to  the  rabble,  or  were  accused  of  the 
heresy  oppressed  by  Heribert. 

The  comparatively  long  pontificate  of  Anselm  of  Badaggio, 
Bishop  of  Lucca,  as  Alexander  II  (1061-1073)  is  notable  for 
(1)  the  beginning  of  a  series  of  imperial  anti-popes,  (2)  the  rise 
of  the  Normans  as  the  supporters  of  the  Papacy,  (3)  for  the 
power  of  the  houses  of  Lorraine  and  Tuscany,  (4)  for  the  early 
days  of  Henry  IV.  All  these  were  a  preparation  for  the  tre- 
mendous struggle  with  the  German  power  begun  by  Hildebrand 
as  Pope  Gregory  VII. 

(1)  The  exact  wording  of  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  the 
Lateran  in  1059  is  not  certain,  the  point  at  issue  being  whether 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPAC  1 33 

any  rights  were  reserved  for  the  Franconian  House  in  sanction- 
ing the  papal  election.  It  was  certain  that  Henry  III  had  prac- 
tically nominated  every  pontiff  since  the  deposition  of  Gregory 
VI  and  his  rivals.  The  council  met  in  the  infancy  of  his  son 
Henry  IV,  and  according  to  some  respected,  and  to  others  en- 
tirely disregarded  his  claims.  Anselm  of  Lucca  had  been  elected 
without  consulting  the  Germans,  and  was  distasteful  to  the 
Lombards  as  representing  the  intolerance  of  Hildebrand  and 
Damiani.  Already  it  was  recognized  that,  whoever  was  pope, 
the  real  enemy  was  Hildebrand.  Hildebrand,  according  to  a 
contemporary  epigram,  had  made  Alexander  II  a  pope,  and  the 
Pope  had  made  him  a  God.  Guibert,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Empire  in  Italy,  assembled  a  council  at  Basle  which  elected 
Cadalous,  Bishop  of  Parma.  He  took  the  title  of  Honorius  II. 
War  was  thus  openly  declared,  the  monastic  party  with 
Hildebrand,  Peter  Damiani,  and  the  Normans  supporting 
Alexander  II,  and  the  Antipope  being  backed  by  the  Lombard 
clergy  and  the  upholders  of  the  Imperial  power  in  Italy. 

(2)  Political  influences  were  naturally  deeply  involved  in 
the  coming  struggle,  and  the  rise  of  the  Norman  power  was  a 
serious  menace  to  German  influence  in  Italy.  This  wise  and 
adventurous  people  had  recognized  the  importance  of  being  on 
good  terms  with  the  Popes,  now  about  to  become  all  powerful; 
and,  since  the  defeat  of  Leo  IX  at  Cividale,  they  had  done  their 
best  to  conciliate  the  papal  government.  In  accepting  their 
alliance  Nicolas  II  had  followed  the  traditional  papal  policy, 
pursued  till  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  of  keeping 
southern  Italy  apart  from  the  northern  end  of  the  peninsula. 
In  1071  Sicily  fell  into  Norman  hands,  thereby  giving  the  com- 
mand of  the  Mediterranean  to  that  enterprising  nation.  It  is 
not  surprising  therefore,  that  when  William  the  Norman  ap- 
pealed against  Harold,  Alexander  II  gave  a  decision  in  his 
favour  and  decided  to  bless  his  expedition  to  secure  the  crown 
of  England;  especially  as  Stigand,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
was  deemed  by  Rome  to  be  a  schismatical  occupant  of  the 
primatial  see.  This  interference  with  the  affairs  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  may  have  been  unjust,  though  really  it  proved  a  blessing 


134  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

in  disguise.  Their  history  for  the  past  century  had  been  far 
from  glorious,  and  the  country  needed  able  leaders  to  raise  its 
people  to  a  higher  level  of  civilization.  It  is  to  the  credit  of 
the  Normans  that  they  performed  their  task  of  conquering  Eng- 
land so  thoroughly  that  it  was  both  speedy  and  permanent, 
and  to  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  that  they  submitted  to  the 
inevitable,  and  united  with  their  conquerors  in  making  a  great 
nation.  The  two  people  commingled  within  a  few  generations; 
but  the  Norman   and  Anglo-Saxon   spirit  exist   still  side  by 
side.  The  one  has  been  shown  throughout  history  by  the  power 
of  inspiring  respect  mingled  with  fear,  which  has  made  Eng- 
lishmen in  the  past  able  to  rule  the  inferior  races  of  the  world, 
less  to  their  own  advantage,  than  to  that  of  their  subjects;  whilst, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  Anglo-Saxon,  England  has  been  gifted  with 
an  obstinate  obtuseness  which  is  not  its  least  valuable  asset. 
Thus  the  necessities  of  papal  policy  in  the  eleventh  century 
contributed  to  the  growth  and  development  of  the  British  race. 
(3)  The   Normans  were  not  the  only  rivals  of  the  Caesars 
in   Italy.    The    powerful   house   of  Lorraine   were   hereditary 
enemies  of  the  Franconian  line;  and  Godfrey  IV  was  allied  by 
his  marriage  with  a  Tuscan  princess.  His  wife  was   Beatrice, 
the  widow  of  the  Marquis  Boniface  and  the  mother  of  Matilda, 
the  most  celebrated  woman  of  the  eleventh  century.  The  strong- 
hold of  Matilda  was  Canossa,  which  had  been  the  fortress  of 
her  great-grandfather  Azzo,  or  Atto,  who  had  become  Count 
of  Modena  and  Reggio.  The  cities  of  Ferrara  and  Brescia  were 
added  to  the  dominions  of  his  son,  Tedaldo;  and  his  grandson 
Boniface  II,  the  Pious,  obtained  Tuscany.  He  was  murdered 
in  1052,  leaving  his  widow  Beatrice  and  her  daughter  Matilda. 
The  immense  power  of  this  family  and  the  alliance  of  Beatrice 
with  Godfrey  of  Lorraine,  brother  of  Pope  Stephen  IX,  made 
them  suspected  by  Henry  III;  and,  for  marrying  without  the 
consent  of  her  feudal  lord,  Beatrice  was  kept  in  custody  by 
the  Emperor  till  1056,  when  Godfrey  made  his  peace.  Matilda's 
dominions  were  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  coming  struggle 
between  Emperor  and  Pope,  as  they  lay  direct  in  the  way  of  any 
advance  to  Rome. 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  135 

(4)  Henry  IV,  King  of  the  Romans,  was  born  1050  and  was 
consequently  six  years  of  age  when  he  succeeded  on  the  death 
of  his  father  Henry  III.  The  real  rulers  of  the  Empire  were  the 
powerful  feudatories,  especially  the  princely  archbishops.  These 
exercised  great  authority  over  the  bishops,  and  in  their  desire 
to  acquire  wealth  ruthlessly  despoiled  the  monasteries.  The  ra- 
pacity of  these  prelates  was  in  itself  an  argument  for  the  vigor- 
ous crusade  made  by  the  papal  party  against  Simony.  The 
leading  metropolitans,  if  not  in  rank  at  least  in  ability,  were 
Hanno  of  Cologne  and  Adalbert  of  Bremen.  Hanno  threw  his 
influence  on  the  side  of  the  legitimate  pope,  Alexander  II,  and 
therefore  of  Peter  Damiani  and  Hildebrand.  With  the  aid  of 
the  archbishops  of  Cologne  and  Mainz  he  seized  the  boy  king, 
Henry  IV,  and  boldly  removed  him  from  the  influence  of  the 
Empress  Agnes  his  mother.  But  Henry  preferred,  as  he  grew  up, 
to  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  Adalbert,  Archbishop  of 
Bremen.  Between  Adalbert  and  Hanno  was  constant  rivalry. 
Hanno  sought  the  support  of  the  episcopate,  Adalbert  that  of 
the  nobles.  Ultimately  Hanno  prevailed  and  with  his  victory 
the  triumph  of  Alexander  II  over  his  rival  Cadalous  (Honorius 
II)  was  complete.  Under  such  influences  the  young  King  arrived 
at  the  age  of  manhood. 

Alexander  II  died  on  April  21,  1073.  And  now  the  clergy 
and  people  in  Rome  would  wait  no  longer,  and  with  one  voice 
proclaimed  Hildebrand  as  Pope.  He  ascended  the  throne  as 
Gregory  VII,  whether  in  memory  of  his  predecessor,  Gregory 
I,  the  greatest  of  the  popes,  or  of  his  patron  Gregory  VJ,  whose 
exile  he  had  shared  when  he  had  been  forced  by  imperial  au- 
thority to  make  way  for  a  German.  For  many  years  he  had  been 
the  dominant  figure  in  Christendom.  He  had  been  employed 
as  the  papal  agent  in  many  lands,  and  throughout  successive 
pontificates  he,  and  not  the  occupant  of  St.  Peter's  seat,  had 
stood  for  the  Roman  traditions.  His  immediate  predecessors, 
with  the  exception  of  Alexander  II,  who  was  an  Italian  rather 
than  a  Roman,  had  all  been  foreigners.  Gregory  was  Roman 
by  training,  he  represented  the  tradition  not  only  of  the  Church 
but  of  the  Republic.  To  him  even  the  City  was  nothing  compared 


136  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  the  world  in  which  it  was  his  duty  to  bring  under  the  Roman 
sway.  As  a  Christian  priest  he  might  have  taken  as  his  motto 
Pascere  subjectos,  but,  as  a  Roman,  he  would  have  left  Virgil's 
words  debellare  superbos  unchanged.  The  law  which  he  sought  to 
impose  on  mankind,  demanded  unquestioning  obedience  to  the 
commands  of  the  Holy  See.  Kings  and  princes  were  but  laity, 
who  if  they  sinned  must  be  rebuked  and  chastened  by  their 
spiritual  superiors:  for  "gold  is  not  so  much  more  precious  than 
lead  as  the  sacerdotal  dignity  is  higher  than  kings."  Over 
certain  realms  Gregory  claimed  an  ahum  dominium  on  the 
ground  that  they  had  been  made  over  to  the  custody  of  St. 
Peter.  These  were  Spain,  Hungary,  Bohemia,  Croatia,  Russia 
(now  under  Constantinople)  and  England.  But  despite  these 
claims,  which  to  us  may  seem  preposterous,  Gregory  was  not 
blinded  by  his  arrogance.  He  knew  a  man  when  he  met  him,  and 
he  frankly  recognised  that  such  an  one  as  William  the  Conqueror 
could  speak  his  mind  even  to  a  pope.  Nor  does  his  conduct 
towards  Berengar  reveal  Gregory  as  intolerant  in  theological 
controversy.  He  condemned  Berengar's  opinion  on  the  Eu- 
charist, but  showed  no  bitterness  to  the  individual;  he  treated 
him  as  a  man  of  intellect  who  had  come  to  a  wrong  conclusion, 
but  ought  not  on  that  account  to  be  hounded  out  of  the 
Church. 

Gregory  surveyed  the  world  of  his  time  with  the  eye  of  a 
statesman,  a  priest  and  a  prophet;  and  it  might  be  said  that 
in  his  eyes  "Behold  it  was  very  bad."  In  Germany,  Henry  IV 
was  determined  to  assert  the  authority  of  the  imperial  crown 
to  the  utmost  and  to  bring  the  Church  under  his  power,  con- 
trolling the  See  of  Rome  as  his  great  predecessors  had  done. 
The  profligacy  of  Philip  I  of  France  was  bound  to  draw  down 
the  censures  of  the  Church.  Lombardy  was  still  seething  with 
discontent  at  the  treatment  of  the  married  clergy.  In  Southern 
Italy  the  power  and  craft  of  Robert  Guiscard  was  a  menace  to 
the  papal  dominions.  In  all  parts  of  the  world  the  bishops  were 
tainted  with  the  sin  of  Simony  which  Gregory  was  bent  upon 
suppressing.  But  the  Pope  was  able  to  count  on  three  allies. 
The  Roman  people,  despite  the  misery  he  brought  upon  them, 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  1 37 

were  loyal.  The  monks  stood  by  him,  not  only  because  his  party 
was  animated  by  their  ideals,  but  on  account  of  the  unsatiable 
greed  with  which  the  great  metropolitans  and  bishops  plun- 
dered the  abbeys,  especially  in  Germany.  And  upon  the  whole, 
the  common  people  sided  with  the  Pope.  At  least  he  was  the 
enemy  of  their  tyrants— his  high  pretensions  did  not  touch 
them.  They  cared  little  or  nothing  for  the  freedom  of  the 
clergy  from  outside  dictation,  especially  when  papal  interference 
promised  to  secure  them  better  and  more  zealous  priests.  In 
the  ensuing  struggle  the  cause  of  the  Pope  was  undoubtedly 
the  popular  one. 

It  is  now  desirable  to  sketch  in  a  few  words  the  condition 
of  Germany  at  Gregory's  accession.  Henry  IV  had  had  all  the 
disadvantages  entailed  by  a  long  minority.  His  authority  had 
been  in  the  hands  of  ambitious  and  self-seeking  prelates  and 
princes  of  the  Empire.  He  himself  had  been  educated  as  a  king 
and  had  not  been  schooled  in  self-discipline  or  control.  He  had 
been  forced  into  a  marriage  which  he  detested,  though  it  after- 
wards proved  a  singularly  happy  one.  The  Empire  was  dis- 
tracted by  factions,  and  by  the  enmity  of  the  Saxons  to  the 
Franconian  house.  Henry  IV  was  twenty-three  years  of  age  at 
the  time  of  Gregory's  accession.  He  was  a  man  of  commanding 
presence  and  of  much  natural  ability,  determined  to  crush 
opposition,  and  to  become  master  of  his  dominions. 

Gregory  VII  began  his  pontificate  on  April  22,  1073,  and 
in  June  the  Saxons  openly  revolted  against  Henry  IV.  The  Pope 
and  King  were  not  on  unfriendly  terms,  though  Gregory  from 
the  first  accused  Henry  of  having  been  guilty  of  Simony. 
Henry  meekly  acknowledged  his  responsibility  to  the  Pope, 
whose  aid  he  desired,  as  his  war  with  the  Saxons  was  far  from 
successful.  On  February  24  in  the  following  year  (1074)  the  royal 
castle  of  the  Hartzburg  was  taken  and  the  Saxons  insulted  the 
remains  of  Henry's  relatives  buried  there,  and  desecrated  the 
chapel,  for  which  the  king  demanded  the  spiritual  censures  of 
the  Pope  as  against  these  profane  and  rebellious  subjects.  In  the 
meantime  Gregory  in  a  Synod  in  Rome  condemned  Simony 
and  clerical  marriage;  and  an  embassy  was  sent  to  enforce  the 


138  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

decrees  in  Germany,  and  met  with  a  very  discouraging  re- 
ception. Siegfried  of  Mainz,  the  primate  of  Germany,  had  al- 
ready published  them  in  March;  and  at  the  Synod  of  Erfurt, 
October,  1074,  at  which  they  were  debated,  closed  amid  con- 
fusion. The  Pope  was  not  deterred  by  this  opposition.  His  de- 
crees were  sterner  than  ever  against  the  married  clergy,  they 
were  to  be  degraded  from  their  office,  and  thrust  into  the  ranks 
of  the  penitents.  The  people  were  incited  to  rise  against  them. 
No  sacrament  administered  by  a  priest  in  concubinage  was 
to  be  reckoned  valid.  Their  wretched  wives  were  torn  from 
them  and  treated  with  brutal  severity.  The  clergy  protested: 
popular  favour  was  on  the  side  of  the  Pope  and  they  were  power- 
less. At  the  same  time  the  Council  at  Rome,  February,  1075,  ab- 
solutely forbid  the  practice  of  bishops  or  beneficiaries  doing 
homage  to  any  secular  authority  or  receiving  investiture  by 
ring  and  staff.  The  idea  was  to  render  the  immense  estates  of 
the  Church  hitherto  held  by  feudal  tenure  absolutely  inde- 
pendent and  to  set  up  within  the  Empire  a  power  amenable  to 
no  earthly  authority  except  that  of  the  Pope.  It  was  a  declara- 
tion of  war  against  Henry  IV,  who  on  June  9,  1075,  had  crushed 
the  Saxons  at  Hohenburg  and  was  therefore  once  more  a  power 
in  his  dominions. 

Next  there  occurred  an  event  recalling  the  days  of  old 
Roman  savagery  in  the  days  of  Charles  the  Great.  A  turbulent 
noble  named  Cencius  seized  the  Pope  and  thrust  him  into  a 
dungeon.  The  indignant  people  rose  in  support  of  their  pontiff" 
and  Gregory  soon  had  the  ruffian  who  had  insulted  his  person  at 
his  feet.  It  was  believed  that  Guibert,  Archbishop  of  Ravenna, 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Empire  in  Italy,  was  privy  to  the  outrage. 
At  any  rate,  the  breach  with  the  Empire  was  now  complete. 
Henry  IV  was  summoned  to  appear  at  Rome  by  February  22, 
1076,  to  answer  for  his  ofFences  under  pain  of  excommunication. 
Henry  retorted  by  a  decree  issued  from  a  Synod  held  at  Worms 
deposing  Gregory.  The  Lateran  Council,  big  with  the  fate  of 
an  empire,  met  on  February  21.  The  circumstances  remind  us  of 
the  Rome  described  by  Livy.  A  serpent  was  seen  climbing  an 
egg.  It  suddenly  struck  what  appeared  to  be  a  shield  and  re- 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  1 39 

coiled  in  mortal  agony.  The  Pope  and  his  successors  sat  in 
deliberation  over  the  prodigy,  when  suddenly  Roland  the  am- 
bassador of  Henry  entered  and  pronounced  his  sentence  against 
Gregory.  Thereupon  Gregory  interpreted  the  sign  of  the  egg.  The 
serpent  was  the  devil  whose  discomfiture  would  be  sure.  Henry 
was  solemnly  excommunicated.  The  effect  in  Germany  was  dis- 
astrous to  the  royal  party.  The  nobles  and  prelates  fell  away. 
William,  Bishop  of  Utrecht,  who  had  denounced  the  Pope,  died 
in  torments,  Henry  IV  was  defeated  by  the  Saxons,  and  Gregory 
pushed  his  advantage  relentlessly.  He  ordered  Henry's  sub- 
jects to  desert  their  excommunicated  King.  At  the  Diet  at 
Tribur  the  princes  renounced  their  allegiance.  The  Pope  an- 
nounced that  he  would  hold  his  court  at  Augsburg  on  February 
25,  1077. 

Henry  now  resolved  on  preventing  this  by  himself  seeking 
Gregory  and  demanding  absolution  at  his  hands.  Accordingly 
he  crossed  the  Alps  and  in  January  found  the  Pope  at  Canossa, 
the  strong  castle  of  Matilda  of  Tuscany.  There  he  did  his 
famous  penance,  and  "to  go  to  Canossa"  has  become  a  by-word 
for  surrendering  to  the  ecclesiastical  authority.  The  scene  was 
dramatic,  the  King  is  said  to  have  waited  in  the  snow  three 
days  for  the  inflexible  Pontiff  before  he  relented.  Gregory  in- 
sisted on  insuring  the  genuineness  of  his  penitence  by  all  the 
terrors  of  the  Consecrated  Host.  Only  the  tears  and  entreaties 
cf  Matilda  induced  the  Pope  to  relent. 

It  is  easy  to  overestimate  the  importance  of  Canossa.  In 
fact  it  is  still  an  open  question  whether  King  or  Pope  had  the 
advantage.  It  was  the  Pope's  object  to  go  to  Augsburg  and  de- 
pose Henry.  This  was  prevented  by  the  speedy  submission  of 
the  King,  which  also  inclined  his  German  subjects  to  espouse 
his  cause  against  papal  tyranny.  At  any  rate  Henry  was  ab- 
solved and  free  from  all  the  awful  penalties  of  one  under  the 
ban  of  the  Church.  At  least  his  adherents  could  communicate 
with  him  without  danger  of  hell  fire.  The  truce  was  of  but  brief 
duration  and  when  the  struggle  was  renewed  the  King  was  in  a 
better  position  than  he  had  been  in  1076. 

Canossa  was  no  more  than  a  highly  dramatic  episode  in 


140  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  long  struggle  between  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire  on  the 
question  of  investiture.  It  was  the  cause  of  a  truce  between 
Henry  IV  and  the  Papacy,  the  prelude  of  a  far  fiercer  struggle. 
About  six  weeks  after  the  king's  penance  the  German  diet  met 
at  Forcheim  March  13,  1077,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  papal 
legates  Henry  was  deposed  and  Rudolf  of  Swabia  elected  king 
in  his  place.  Gregory,  however,  declared  that  the  election  had 
been  made  without  his  knowledge  and  consent;  but  this  natu- 
rally did  not  prevent  civil  war  in  Germany,  though  for  two 
years  the  Pope  remained  neutral.  The  year  for  Canossa,  how- 
ever, was  also  memorable  not  only  for  the  death  of  the  Empress 
Agnes,  mother  of  Henry  IV,  but  of  the  famous  donation  by 
Matilda  of  all  she  had  or  might  hereafter  acquire  to  St. 
Peter  in  the  person  of  Gregory.  As  the  war  went  on  the  Saxon 
party  opposed  to  Henry  complained  bitterly  of  the  papal  in- 
decision; and,  at  last,  in  March,  1080,  a  Synod  was  held  in  the 
Lateran  to  decide  between  the  two  kings.  Gregory  delivered 
a  tremendous  allocution  to  the  assembled  bishops  and  clergy, 
and  pronounced  sentence  of  excommunication  against  Henry. 
War  was  now  open  and  the  Pope  secured  the  powerful  help  of 
the  Normans  by  sending  his  friend  Desiderius,  Abbot  of  Monte 
Cassino,  to  Robert  Guiscard.  Henry  in  the  meantime  was  pre- 
paring a  combination  in  Northern  Italy  against  Matilda  of 
Tuscany,  and  a  council  of  the  prelates  of  his  faction  was  called 
at  Brixen  in  the  Austrian  Tyrol. 

At  Brixen  Gregory  was  deposed  and  in  his  place  Guibert 
of  Ravenna  was  raised  to  the  popedom  with  the  title  of  Clement 
III.  Thus  the  policy  of  setting  up  an  imperial  antipope  was  re- 
peated, and,  as  usual,  resulted  in  failure.  In  this  instance  the 
mistake  was  the  more  glaring  on  the  part  of  Henry  in  view  of 
the  high  character,  abilities  and  reputation  of  Hildebrand. 
Guibert  would  also  have  been  far  more  dangerous  as  Arch- 
bishop of  Ravenna  and  Chancellor  of  the  Empire  in  Italy, 
especially  as  his  see  had  long  contested  the  Roman  supremacy. 

The  crisis  came  in  the  same  year  at  the  battle  of  the  Elster, 
October  15,  1080,  when  Rudolf  of  Swabia  was  killed  when  about 
to  inflict  a  severe  defeat  on  his  rival.  The  same  day  the  Henri- 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  14I 

cians  won  a  victory  over  the  army  of  Matilda,  and  Henry  IV 
without  any  rival  in  Germany  was  able  to  devote  his  entire 
energies  to  the  subjugation  of  Gregory  VII.  In  March,  1081, 
the  German  King  entered  Italy.  For  three  years  Rome  was  be- 
sieged and  Matilda's  lands  ravaged  by  the  Germans.  In  1084, 
Gregory  having  secured  the  aid  of  the  Normans  was  relieved 
in  Rome  by  Robert  Guiscard.  The  army  which  came  to  save 
the  Pope  ruined  the  City.  Composed  as  it  was  of  men  of  all 
races,  including  Saracens,  it  sacked  the  town  remorselessly  and 
from  this  time  it  may  be  said  that  ancient  Rome  ceased  to 
exist  and  modern  Rome  took  its  place.  Gregory  VII  seems  to 
have  been  little  moved  even  by  the  ruin  of  Rome.  He  retired 
with  Guiscard  to  Salerno  where  he  died,  with  the  words  on 
his  lips,  "I  have  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity  and  therefore 
I  die  in  exile."  Just  before  the  arrival  of  the  troops  of  Guiscard, 
Henry  IV  had  received  the  imperial  crown  at  the  hands  of 
Clement  III.  Thus  he  became  Emperor  by  his  coronation  at 
Rome  but  at  the  hand  of  an  antipope. 

Though  the  struggle  between  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy 
lasted  till  11 22,  the  main  interest  ceased  with  the  death  of 
Hildebrand,  whose  successors  were  Victor  III  (1086-1087), 
who  had  been  known  as  Desiderius,  Abbot  of  Monte  Cas- 
sino;  Urban  II  (1088-1099),  before  his  accession  Bishop  of 
Ostia,  a  Frenchman  and  a  pupil  of  St.  Bruno;  Paschal  II 
(1099-1118);  Gelasius  II,  and  Calixtus  II,  under  whom  the 
investiture  dispute  was  settled.  The  Crusades  in  a  measure 
diverted  the  interest  of  the  Church  from  the  strife  between 
Pope  and  Emperor,  the  heroic  element  of  which  had  been 
buried  with  Hildebrand,  who,  stern  and  relentless  as  he  was, 
was  incapable  of  any  description  of  baseness.  It  would  appear 
that  this  humbly  born  man  was  the  truest  aristocrat  of  his 
time.  Naturally  of  a  kindly  disposition  he  was  on  principle 
severe,  unyielding,  and  arrogant  in  asserting  the  supreme 
majesty  of  his  office.  But  he  was  too  proud  to  be  dishonest  or 
to  resort  to  trickery.  If  he  and  Peter  Damiani  may  have  shown 
a  harshness  which  a  Christian  might  deplore,  they  did  nothing 
which  a  gentleman  could  condemn.  But  their  successors  fought 


142  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

with  baser  weapons  than  they  deigned  to  use.  Under  Urban  II, 
Matilda  and  her  friends  stirred  up  Conrad,  the  son  of  Henry 
IV,  a  weak,  treacherous  and  superstitious  youth,  to  rebel 
against  his  father  and  accept  the  crown  of  Italy.  The  days  of 
Paschal  witnessed  the  more  unfilial  and  hypocritical  conduct 
of  another  son,  afterwards  Henry  V,  who  used  the  clergy  as 
his  tools  against  his  father.  Henry  IV  died  wretchedly  in  1106, 
after  having  been  actually  imprisoned  by  his  son,  who,  when 
he  came  to  the  throne,  threw  his  clerical  supporters  contempt- 
uously aside,  and  forced  the  Pope  to  crown  him  Emperor  in 
Rome. 

It  was  not  till  1122  that  the  question  of  investiture  was 
settled  with  the  Empire  by  the  Concordat  of  Worms,  1122, 
between  Henry  V  and  Calixtus  III.  The  terms  were  as  follows: 

The  Emperor  surrendered  the  ceremony  of  investiture  by 
ring  and  staff,  and  granted  the  clergy  the  right  of  free  election. 
He  restored  all  the  Church  of  Rome  had  lost  and  promised  to 
protect  its  rights.  In  return  the  Pope  granted  that  all  elections 
of  bishops  and  Abbots  should  take  place  in  the  presence  of  the 
Emperor  or  his  deputy.  In  Germany  every  bishop  elect  was  to 
receive  his  temporalities  by  the  touch  of  the  royal  sceptre, 
except  those  held  directly  from  the  See  of  Rome.  Bishops  were 
also  bound  to  perform  their  feudal  duties.  Outside  Germany 
every  bishop  in  the  Empire  was  to  receive  all  his  temporalities 
within  six  months  of  his  consecration.  These  terms  are  virtually 
those  made  between  Henry  I  of  England  and  Paschal  II.  A 
struggle  which  had  lasted  nearly  half  a  century  ended  in  a  com- 
promise which  might  have  been  arrived  at  in  a  short  conference. 
Whether  Hildebrand  would  have  assented  to  such  an  arrange- 
ment is  doubtful. 

This  chapter  opened  with  the  Papacy  just  free  from  the 
tyranny  and  caprice  of  the  Tusculan  counts  with  a  clergy  too 
feeble  to  choose  or  support  a  pope  of  their  own.  Several  popes 
in  succession  were  appointed  by  the  Emperor — all  Germans 
from  his  native  dominions.  At  last  a  true  Roman  made  his 
influence  felt  in  the  person  of  Hildebrand,  who,  supported  by 
the  powerful  monastic  party,  first  placed  men  after  his  own 


THE  REVIVAL  AND  REORGANIZATION  OF  PAPACY  1 43 

heart  on  the  papal  throne,  and  finally  ascended  it  himself  and 
defied  the  power  of  the  Empire  to  dispute  his  claim.  By  the 
statesmanship  of  Hildebrand  the  Roman  Church  practically 
acquired  the  right  of  choosing  the  Pope;  and  though  this  was 
restricted  to  the  chiefest  of  the  clergy,  it  was  more  than  had 
been  enjoyed  for  many  centuries.  In  vain  did  the  imperial 
nominees  dispute  with  the  man  selected  by  the  Roman  Church. 
They  might  hold  Rome,  but  they  were  never  really  popes. 

In  breaking  the  formidable  faction  of  the  married  clergy, 
especially  in  Lombardy,  the  party  of  Hildebrand  separated 
every  ordained  man  from  the  ordinary  life  of  humanity.  The 
celibate  priest  was  made  to  feel  that  he  belonged  to  another 
order  of  mortals.  Thus  the  extreme  clericalism  of  the  Middle 
Ages  comes  more  and  more  into  relief.  By  making  it  impossible 
for  a  clergyman  to  have  honourable  offspring  the  order  was 
prevented  from  becoming  a  caste;  but  this  was  at  the  expense 
of  being  a  class,  isolated  from  ordinary  men,  and  devoted  to 
its  own  honour  and  advancement. 

Events  have  shown  that  by  his  bold  assertion  of  the  claims 
of  the  Church  against  the  Empire  Gregory  VII  was  support- 
ing a  reality  against  what  was  after  all  a  fiction.  Caesar,  as  a 
world  power,  existed  mainly  in  the  imagination:  he  was  no 
more  than  a  German  king.  Nor  did  the  disunited  and  disorgan- 
ized Empire  represent  humanity.  The  Church  was  a  fact;  its 
influence  was  felt  by  every  man  in  Europe.  Gregory  VII  in- 
deed stood  for  a  great  cause  and  it  was  for  the  good  of  the 
world  that,  at  any  rate  in  his  days,  it  should  prevail. 

AUTHORITIES 

For  the  monastery  of  Cluny,  see  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  IV,  p.  72, 
where  there  is  a  picture  of  the  Abbey  before  its  destruction  in  1790,  also 
Lavisse,  Histoire  de  France,  Vol.  II.  The  works  of  St.  Peter  Damiani  are 
in  Migne,  P.  L.,  Vols.  144-145.  On  his  censures  of  the  Temporal  Power 
and  on  the  blame  laid  on  Leo  IX  for  leading  an  army  against  the  Normans  by 
others,  see  Gregorovius,  Vol.  IV,  p.  86,  E.  T.  The  letter  of  Damiani  is  in  his 
Epistles,  Lib.  IV,  Ep.  IX. 

On  Simony  and  Investiture  see  Articles  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia; 
also  Dean  Church's  Life  of  St.  Anselm.  For  Celibacy  of  the  clergy  the  reader 
should  consult  the  Article  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia  and  Vacandard  in 


144  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  Die.  de  Theologie,  s.-v.  Celibat.  The  books  in  English  are  Lea,  History 
of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy,  and  Bishop  Wordsworth,  The  Ministry  of  Grace,  pp. 
206-256.  See  also  Milman,  Latin  Christianity,  Bk.  VI,  Ch.  III. 

The  history  of  the  Eastern  Empire  during  this  period  is  related  in  Findlay, 
History  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  Bk.  II,  Part  II.  For  the  Schism  Louis 
Brehier,  Le  Schisme  Oriental  du  XI  Siecle  is  invaluable.  The  chief  contem- 
porary authority  is  the  historian  and  philosopher  Psellus. 

For  the  Eucharistic  controversy  Batiffol,  Etudes  d'hist.  et  de  theologie 
positive  (Paris,  1905);  Darwell  Stone,  A  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist;  and  J.  H.  Srawley,  art.  "Eucharist  (to  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages)" 
in  Hastings'  Diet,  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  Vol.  V,  pp.  555-557-  For  Gregory 
VII  consult  Mann,  The  Lives  of  the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  VII,  who 
discusses  the  original  authorities.  There  are  three  English  Lives:  Bowden, 
Life  and  Pontificate  of  Gregory  VII;  W.  R.  Stephens'  Hildebrand  and  his 
Times,  also  A.  Mathew,  Life  and  Times  of  Hildebrand,  which  should  be  read 
with  discrimination.  Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire  should  be  read  and  re- 
read by  every  student. 

For  the  terrible  destruction  of  Rome  by  the  Normans,  consult  Gregorovius' 
Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  IV,  247  ff.,  also  F.  Marion  Crawford,  Ave 
Roma  Immortalis,  Ch.  IV.  Professor  Charles  Homer  Haskins  of  Harvard's 
The  Normans  in  European  History  (1916)  is  a  most  interesting  sketch  of 
the  subject. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    CRUSADES 

Cause  of  the  progress  of  Islam  —  The  religious  conquerors  became  secular  princes  — 
Appearance  of  non-Arab  influences  —  Revival  of  the  Byzantine  power  —  The 
Turks  in  Asia  Minor  —  Hakim,  Fatimite  Sultan  of  Egypt  —  Necessity  for  a  Cru- 
sade —  Favourable  prospects  for  Western  attack  on  Palestine  —  Pilgrimages  to 
Jerusalem  —  Plan  of  the  Crusades  —  Urban  II  at  Clermont  —  The  common 
people  go  on  a  crusade  —  The  four  crusading  armies  —  Jerusalem  taken  —  The 
Christian  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  —  The  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem  —  Trade  — 
Byzantine  rivalry  —  Feudal  Palestine  —  The  military  orders  —  Fall  of  Edessa 
second  crusade  —  The  Comnenid  —  Saladin  —  Third  Crusade  —  Death  of  Frederic 
Barbarossa  — Richard  I  takes  Cyprus  —  End  of  third  crusade  —  Fourth  cru- 
sade —  Venetians  employ  crusaders  against  Zara  —  Latin  capture  of  Constanti- 
nople —  Results  of  the  capture  of  Constantinople  —  The  Latin  Empire  in  the 
East  —  Disasters  and  mistakes  of  13th  century  —  Crusades  and  Frederick  II  — 
Louis  IX  —  Fall  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre  —  Consideration  of  the  crusades  —  Advance 
of  Islam  as  a  conquering  power  —  The  Mongols  —  Theories  about  the  crusades  — 
Abandonment  of  crusades  —  Christian  missions  replace  crusades  —  Voyages  to 
the  Far  East  —  Mongols  embrace  Islam  —  The  Ottoman  Turks. 

The  extraordinary  success  of  the  warriors  of  the  Arabian 
deserts  when  they  first  overran  Syria,  Egypt,  Persia,  the  North- 
ern coast  of  Africa,  and  Spain,  was  not  merely  due  to  their 
military  prowess  or  to  the  fanaticism  with  which  their  new 
faith  inspired,  but  to  a  statesmanlike  moderation  which  is 
wholly  admirable.  They  were  not  Huns,  spreading  terror  and 
destruction  on  every  side,  or,  like  the  early  Danish  and  Norse 
pirates,  bent  solely  on  plunder.  They  came  in  irresistible 
strength  offering  three  alternatives — to  accept  Islam,  to  pay 
tribute,  or  the  sword.  Those  who  acknowledged  Allah  and  his 
prophet  became  one  with  the  conquerors,  and  those  who  paid 
tribute  often  obtained  some  return  for  their  money,  which  the 
Roman  Empire  rarely  gave,  and  were  assured  of  protection 
from  their  enemies  by  the  hosts  of  Islam.  Moreover,  not  only 
did  the  conquerors  refuse  to  impose  their  religion  on  any  one; 
they  respected  the  convictions  of  all  their  subjects,  and  ortho- 
dox   and    schismatical    Christians    enioved    equal    privileges, 

145 


146  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

whilst  the  Jew  was  tolerated  and  even  honoured.  Nor  was  it 
to  the  interest  of  the  Moslems  to  convert  all  men,  as  by  ac- 
cepting Islam  the  convert  ceased  to  play  the  indispensable 
part  of  a  tax  payer.  All  this  was  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
policy  of  the  Christian  Roman  Empire,  which  excluded  from 
the  privilege  of  citizenship  all  who  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  dominant  orthodoxy.  The  result  was  that  the  armies  of 
the  Crescent  often  advanced  without  striking  a  blow,  and  the 
Romans  opposed  to  them  fought  surrounded,  not  by  sympa- 
thetic fellow-worshippers,  but  by  Monophysites  or  Nestorians, 
who  almost  openly  sympathised  with  the  invaders.  From  the 
death  of  Mohammed  in  632  to  the  battle  in  Gaul  when  the 
Moslem  host  was  defeated  by  Charles  Martel  at  Tours,  exactly 
a  century  later,  the  record  of  the  progress  of  Islam  is  with  this 
single  exception  the  story  of  rapid  and  unbroken  success. 

It  would  here  be  superfluous  to  relate  the  story  of  the  ad- 
vance of  the  Mohammedan  conquerors  who  had  within  a  few 
years  subdued  a  territory  extending  from  the  Western  coast  of 
Spain  to  the  frontier  of  India  and  had  founded   an  empire 
under  the  Caliph,  or  successor  of  the  Prophet.  A  movement 
inspired  by  the  desire  to  spread  a  new  faith  rapidly  became 
secularised,    and    even    the    near    successors    of   Mohammed 
changed    from    saintly    and    austere   warriors   into    ambitious 
princes.  The  first  of  these  was  Moawiya,  the  governor  of  Syria 
who  in  661  wrested  the  caliphate  from  Ali,  the  first  cousin  and 
son-in-law  of  the  Prophet,  and  established  the  seat  of  empire 
over  the  entire  Mohammedan  world  at  Damascus.  His  dynasty, 
of  the  stock  of  the  original  Arab  conquerors,  lasted  till  A.D.  750 
and  is  known  as  the  Omayyads.  They  represented  the  best 
Arab  tradition  of  primitive  Islam,  with  its  scrupulously  tolerant 
attitude  to  other  religions.  Under  their  successors,  the  Abba- 
sids  of  Bagdad,  Persian  rather  than    Arabian  influence  was 
dominant,  and  the  presence  of  the  Seljukian  Turks  already 
began  to  manifest  itself.   Thus  the  power  which   had    been 
originally  built  up  by  the  Arab   race  passed  into  other  and 
ruder  hands,  and  the  united  caliphate  was  replaced  by  Mo- 
hammedan dynasties,  often  at  war  with  one  another. 


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THE  CRUSADES  1 47 

The  Byzantine  Empire,  moreover,  recovered  from  the  im- 
potence it  had  shown  to  stem  the  invasion  which  had  advanced 
so  far  that  in  717  Constantinople  had  almost  fallen  before  the 
Saracen  fleet  and  army.  The  City  found  a  deliverer  in  Leo,  the 
Isaurian,  who  saved  his  capital  and  reorganized  his  Empire. 
From  this  time  for  many  generations  the  Romans  of  the  East 
held  Asia  Minor  firmly  against  all  attempts  of  the  Moslem; 
and  the  Empire  advanced  with  renewed  strength  for  more  than 
two  centuries  after  the  reforms  of  Leo.  Under  the  Macedonian 
dynasty,  it  showed  amazing  vitality;  and  in  the  days  of 
Basil  II  reached  its  highest  level  of  prosperity;  and  its  bound- 
aries actually  extended  from  the  Adriatic  to  the  Euphrates. 
After  his  death  in  1025,  signs  of  weakness  began  to  reveal  them- 
selves; and  in  1063  the  Emperor  Romanus  Diogenes  was  de- 
feated by  the  Turkish  Sultan  Alp  Arslan  in  battle.  This  was 
followed  by  the  establishment  of  the  Sultanate  of  Rum  (Rome) 
in  the  heart  of  Asia  Minor.  The  Abbasid  caliphate,  however, 
was  constantly  becoming  weaker;  and  in  968  Egypt  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Fatimid  dynasty.  Under  this  rule  the  Chris- 
tians and  Jews  no  longer  enjoyed  the  toleration  which  the 
Saracens  had  accorded  to  them  on  principle;  but  were  subject 
to  the  caprice  of  tyrants,  who  alternately  persecuted  and 
petted  them. 

The  most  formidable  of  these  was  Hakim  (996-1020),  who 
claimed  divine  honours,  and  became  the  founder  of  the  sect  of 
the  Druses  of  Mount  Lebanon.  His  was  the  period  of  the  great 
persecution  of  non-Moslems  in  Egypt. 

All  this  combined  to  make  a  great  effort  on  the  part  of 
Christendom  against  Islam  a  political  as  well  as  a  religious 
necessity.  Not  only  was  there  a  danger  that  the  Holy  Sepulchre 
might  no  longer  be  accessible  to  the  devout,  but  it  appeared 
as  though  the  Turks  might  at  any  time  capture  Constanti- 
nople. Yet  a  campaign  of  the  Western  Christians  against  the 
Moslem  power  had  certain  favourable  prospects. 

Since  1091  the  Normans  had  been  masters  of  Sicily,  which 
had  long  been  occupied  by  the  Saracens;  and  if  the  Byzantines 
had  lost  ground,  they  at  least  held  all  the  islands  of  the  iEgean 


148  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Sea  together  with  Crete  and  Cyprus.  Regarded  in  a  purely 
secular  aspect,  therefore,  an  attack  by  the  Christian  world  on 
that  of  the  Moslems  was  no  means  without  prospect  of  success, 
had  it  only  been  possible  for  the  two  Churches  and  Empires 
to  act  in  harmony.  But  the  arrogant  ambition  of  Michael 
Cerularius  in  reviving  the  ancient  grievances  of  Constantinople 
against  Rome  had  made  such  a  combination  difficult.  A  pre- 
text had,  however,  to  be  found  in  order  to  unite  the  races  of 
the  West  in  the  enterprise. 

The  victories  of  the  Crescent  did  not  put  an  end  to  pil- 
grimages to  Jerusalem  by  Christians,  which  the  Arab  con- 
querors had  understood  and  appreciated.  Just  at  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Great's  coronation  at  Rome,  the  Caliph  Haroun 
al  Rashid  granted  the  Western  Emperor  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre:  thus  Charles  became  the  patron  of  the  Chris- 
tians visiting  Palestine.  The  Frankish  Monarch  continued  to 
be  recognised  as  the  Christian  protector  of  pilgrims  till  the 
eleventh  century. 

With  the  accession  of  the  Fatimid  dynasty  the  benevolent 
attitude  of  the  Moslem  rulers  towards  the  Christian  pilgrims 
ceased,  and  in  1009  Hakim  destroyed  the  church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre;  and  his  persecution  of  his  Jewish  and  Christian 
subjects  lasted  till  1020.  In  1027  Constantine  VIII  made  a 
treaty  with  Al-Zahir,  son  of  Hakim;  and  thus  the  Byzantine 
Emperors  became  protectors  of  the  Christians.  The  church 
of  the  Sepulchre  was  rebuilt  and  finished  in  1048,  when  Con- 
stantine IX  (Monomachus)  was  Emperor  and  Nicephorus 
patriarch  of  Constantinople.  During  the  eleventh  century 
pilgrimages  were  constant;  and  those  who  joined  them  ex- 
perienced little  serious  trouble.  The  conversion  of  Hungary 
opened  a  convenient  route  for  the  peoples  of  Western  Europe; 
hostels  were  established  by  the  way,  and  men  became 
familiar  with  the  different  roads  to  the  Holy  Places.  Even  the 
schism  of  the  Churches  failed  to  stay  the  flood  of  pilgrims, 
who  sometimes  went  in  companies  numbering  thousands.  It  was 
really  the  success  of  the  Turks,  and  the  grave  peril  of  the 
Eastern  Christian  world,  which  aroused  Western  Europe  to 


THE  CRUSADES  1 49 

make  an  effort  to  deliver  the  places  most  holy  in  the  eyes  of 
believers  from  infidels  more  barbarous  and  cruel  than  the  orig- 
inal followers  of  the  Prophet.  The  first  to  suggest  an  expedi- 
tion analogous  to  a  crusade  was  Gregory  VII  in  the  early  years 
of  his  pontificate.  In  a  letter  to  Henry  IV  the  Pope  offered 
himself  to  go  at  the  head  of  an  army  to  deliver  the  oppressed 
Christians  of  the  East.  But  it  was  not  for  twenty-two  years 
that  definite  steps  to  this  end  were  taken. 

Popular  opinion  attributes  the  preaching  of  the  Crusades 
to  the  fervent  eloquence  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  who  went 
throughout  Europe  proclaiming  the  suffering  and  degradation 
to  which  the  Christian  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem  were  subjected. 
That  he  was  a  preacher  of  the  holy  war  is  certain;  but  nearly 
half  a  century  had  to  elapse  before  he  was  generally  credited 
with  having  originated  the  plan  to  deliver  Palestine  from 
the  infidel.  The  idea  as  has  been  remarked  was  due  to  Gregory 
VII,  and  took  shape  ten  years  after  his  death  under  his  next 
successor  but  one.  If  the  credit  of  inaugurating  the  movement 
belongs  to  Urban  II,  he  must  have  been  a  man  of  exceptional 
sagacity  and  political  insight.  At  the  council  of  Piacenza  (1095), 
at  the  very  moment  the  fortunes  of  Henry  IV  had  reached 
their  nadir,  with  his  rebellious  son  Conrad  supported  by 
the  Church,  with  his  wife  making  charges  of  unmentionable 
atrocity  against  him,  which  were  accepted  without  hesitation 
by  the  assembled  prelates,  Urban  proclaimed  his  grand  scheme 
for  saving  the  Eastern  Empire  from  the  Moslems,  and  rescuing 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  profanation.  Nor  did  he  appeal  to 
the  irrational  impulse  which  led  the  humbler  classes  to  start 
on  a  journey  eastward  in  tumultuous  disorder;  he  summoned 
the  best  armies  of  Europe  to  lay  aside  their  feuds  and  unite 
to  save  Christendom.  The  expedition  if  successful  promised 
unbounded  glory  and  influence  for  the  clergy  of  the  West  and 
for  the  Holy  See.  With  the  Western  Empire  at  his  feet  humbled 
in  the  person  of  Henry  IV,  with  the  Eastern  Caesar  acknowl- 
edging him  as  his  deliverer,  with  an  army  consisting  of  the 
flower  of  European  chivalry  marching  at  his  command,  the 
mastery  of  the  world  seemed  within  the  grasp  of  the  Vicar  of 


150  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Christ.  All  that  Gregory  VII  had  striven  for— the  Christian- 
ization  of  all  men  and  the  formation  of  a  league  of  nations 
living  in  peace  and  harmony — might  be  attained  by  the  new 
movement  under  the  Roman  Church. 

As  a  Frenchman,  Urban  II  sought  for  help  to  further  his 
bold  policy  in  his  own  country;  and  Clermont  was  the  scene  of 
the  inauguration  of  the  first  crusade.  The  fact  that  the  crusad- 
ing impulse  emanated  from  a  French  pope  and  found  its  chief 
adherents  on  French  soil  has  had  a  powerful  influence  on  the 
world  policy  of  subsequent  centuries;  for  France  has  never 
lost  sight  of  the  claim  she  then  acquired  to  play  a  prominent 
part  in  the  affairs  of  the  nearer  East.  Urban's  speech  as  re- 
ported played  on  every  string  of  the  human  nature  of  the  age. 
It  appealed  to  the  romantic  spirit,  to  the  desire  of  glory,  to 
the  hope  of  certain  entry  into  heaven,  to  the  prospect  of  the 
wealth  of  the  conquered  enemies.  He  promised  remission  of 
penance  to  all  who  should  take  the  Cross;  and  from  the  Council 
of  Clermont,  as  is  admitted  even  by  Roman  Catholics,  dates 
the  relaxation  of  the  discipline  of  the  Church,  which  was  so 
fatal  to  the  morality  of  later  ages.  The  enthusiasm  was  im- 
mense: with  cries  of  "God  wills  it,"  multitudes  took  the  cross. 
Nor  was  this  a  mere  form;  all  the  terrors  of  excommunication 
threatened  crusaders  who  would  not  go  when  called  upon. 
Everywhere  the  bishops  were  enjoined  to  preach  the  Crusade. 
But  the  enthusiasm  was  not  confined  to  the  class  whom  it  was 
desired  to  reach.  Owing  to  the  preaching  of  Peter  the  Hermit 
and  others,  the  humblest  were  seized  with  a  restless  mania 
to  wander  in  search  of  Jerusalem.  Whole  families  moved 
from  home  with  all  their  belongings  in  ox  wagons,  the 
credulous  people  asking  when  they  saw  a  distant  city,  "Is  this 
Jerusalem?"  These  irregular  bands  spread  devastation  on  all 
sides;  first  they  pillaged  and  massacred  the  Jews,  then  they 
rendered  themselves  intolerable  in  Hungary  where  many 
perished  at  the  hands  of  the  enraged  inhabitants.  Arrived  at 
Constantinople  the  Emperor  Alexius  Comnenus  let  them  cross 
into  Asia  Minor  where  most  were  annihilated  by  the  Turks. 
Few  returned  of  the  irregular  armies  which  under  Walter  the 


THE  CRUSADES  I51 

Pennyless  started  in  quest  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  The  real 
Crusade  was  conducted  with  more  deliberation  and  under  dif- 
ferent auspices. 

There  were  four  armies.  The  first,  under  Godfrey  de  Bouil- 
lon, Duke  of  Lower  Lorraine  and  his  brother  Baldwin,  followed 
the  Danube;  they  then  passed  through  Hungary  and  reached 
Constantinople  on  December  23,  1096.  A  second,  led  by  Hugh, 
brother  of  Philip   I   of  France,   Robert,   son  of  William  the 
Conqueror,  and  Stephen,  Count  of  Blois,  embarked  from  Apulia 
and  crossed  to  Dyrrachium,  whence  they  took  the  Egnatian 
way  to  Constantinople.  This  army  reached  Constantinople  by 
May,   1097,   and  there  joined  the  main  force  at  Nicea.  The 
Southern  French,  under  the  Count  of  Toulouse,  formed  the 
third  army  and  were  accompanied  by  the  Bishop  of  Puy,  the 
papal  legate.   After   a  toilsome  journey  through  Servia   and 
Dalmatia  these  came  to  Constantinople  at  the  end  of  April, 
1097.  The  Normans  of  Southern  Italy,  under  Robert  Guis- 
card's  eldest  son  Bohemond,  and  his  nephew  Tancred,  formed 
the  fourth  army.  By  May,   1097,  the  entire  crusading  force 
was  in  Asia  Minor.  In  June  Nicea  was  taken  by  the  Crusaders 
from  the  Turks,  and  on  July  1st  their  victory  on  the  plains  of 
Dorykeum  opened  to  their  army  the  road  across  Asia  Minor. 
The  first  principality  founded  by  the  Westerns  in  the  East 
was  that  of  Edessa,  taken  by  Baldwin,  brother  of  Godfrey  de 
Bouillon  on  March  9,  1098.  On  June  2,  1098,  Antioch  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  Crusaders.  It  was  nearly  a  year  before  the 
march  to  Jerusalem  was  resumed;  and  the  Crusaders  were  dis- 
tracted by  their  intestine  disputes  and  by  the  factions  of  the 
Count  of  Toulouse  and  the  Norman  chiefs.  The  possession  of 
Jerusalem  at  this  time  was  disputed  by  the  Turks  and  the 
Fatimites  of  Egypt  and  the  Egyptians  had  retaken  the  city 
from  their  rivals  in  August,  1098.  The  Christian  army  appeared 
before  its  walls  in  June,  1099,  and  on  July  15th  the  city  was 
captured.  Every  excess  conceivable  seems  to  have  been  per- 
petrated by  the  crusading  army,  and  their  victory  was  marked 
by  a  series  of  unspeakable  atrocities. 

The  news  that  Jerusalem  was  in  Christian  hands,  naturally 


1^2  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

caused  much  enthusiasm  in  Europe,  and  the  crusading  armies 
were  largely  reinforced,  the  Germans  who  had  thus  far  held 
aloof  being  now  infected  by  the  common  enthusiasm.  Though 
the  difficulties  of  the  victorious  hosts  were  still  considerable, 
they  set  to  work  to  organize  the  various  Christian  principal- 
ities which  had  been  founded,  on  a  plan  which  is  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  operation  of  feudal  law. 

The  first  Crusade  had  left  the  whole  coast  between  Egypt 
and  Asia  Minor  in  Christian  hands.  Its  divisions  were  (i)  the 
Kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  which  stretched  southward  as  far  as 
the  Red  Sea  and  northward  to  the  Lebanon;  (2)  the  Duchy  of 
Tripoli,  north  of  the  Kingdom;  (3)  the  Principality  of  Antioch; 
and  (4)  the  Duchy  of  Edessa.  Under  a  single  capable  head  these 
provinces  might  united  have  proved  a  formidable  bulwark  of 
Christendom  despite  the  ever  threatening  menace  of  the 
Moslems.  But  the  conquest  had  been  inspired  by  the  Pope  and 
accomplished  by  feudal  barons,  mostly  French,  and  the  terri- 
tory it  had  acquired  had  the  disadvantage  of  being  governed 
by  an  aristocratic  theocracy.  Still,  considering  its  dangerous 
position  and  the  defects  of  its  government,  it  prospered  wonder- 
fully. At  the  head  was  the  king  of  Jerusalem,  whose  power  was 
jealously  limited  by  his  barons  in  their  Court  of  Liegemen  or 
High  Court;  supplemented  by  the  Court  of  Burgesses.  In  every 
fief  the  power  of  the  lord  was  restrained  by  a  mixed  assembly 
of  knights  and  burgesses.  In  fact  a  parliamentary  govern- 
ment was  set  up  in  a  new  country,  unimpeded  by  tradition  or 
ancient  prescriptive  rights;  and  in  the  constitution  of  the 
crusading  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  there  is  a  practical  attempt 
to  realise  the  ideal  government  of  the  eleventh  century. 
Military  service  was  made  more  effective  than  in  other  feudal 
kingdoms.  The  king  was  the  commander  of  the  army  which  was 
bound  to  serve  not  for  a  limited  period,  but  for  the  whole  war. 
But  the  soldiers  received  pay,  and  were  indemnified  for  the 
loss  of  their  horses  and  animals. 

But  although  the  feudal  army  of  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem 
was  an  improvement  on  those  of  Europe,  it  could  not  have  the 
same  efficiency  as  a  professional  soldiery.  This  was  supplied 


THE  CRUSADES  1 53 

by  the  monastic  military  orders,  the  first  of  which  was  the 
Hospitallers.  They  were  founded  for  the  purpose  of  defending 
pilgrims  and  caring  for  the  sick;  but  in  11 13,  under  Gerard  de 
Puy,  they  became  a  military  order,  pledged  to  fight  the  infidel 
in  defence  of  the  Christian  states.  In  11 18  nine  knights  vowed 
to  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem  to  observe  a  rule  of  poverty, 
chastity  and  obedience.  The  king  gave  them  a  lodging  near  the 
Temple  and  they  called  themselves  "Knights  Templars." 
This  famous  order  was  divided  into  three  grades:  Knights,  all 
of  whom  were  noble;  Sergeants,  belonging  to  the  middle  class; 
and  Chaplains.  These  two  orders  formed  the  standing  army  of 
the  Frankish  conquerors  of  Palestine  and  were  free  alike  of  civil 
and  episcopal  control,  being  subject  only  to  the  Pope.  They 
held  all  the  strongest  fortresses  in  the  country  as  well  as  im- 
mense estates  in  Europe.  They  were  indeed  one  of  the  strongest 
organizations  in  the  world,  combining  the  monastic  and  mili- 
tary professions,  both  of  which  were  held  in  the  highest  esteem. 

The  Latin  Church  was  also  firmly  established.  The  Patri- 
archate of  Jerusalem  was  the  spiritual  lord  of  the  Holy  Land, 
and  of  hardly  less  importance  than  the  king.  He  ruled  over 
five  metropolitans.  There  were  also  numerous  and  wealthy 
monasteries.  The  various  bodies  separated  from  the  Greek 
Church,  Nestorians,  Monophy sites,  etc.,  hastened  to  unite  to 
the  Church  and  their  adherents  formed  the  middle  class  in 
Christian  Palestine. 

Trade  also  developed  rapidly  and  the  Christian  world  came 
in  touch  with  the  far  East.  Certainly  the  advantages  of  the 
Crusades  were  not  all  either  religious  or  sentimental.  New 
wealth  was  created,  new  ideals  inaugurated,  fresh  energy  given 
to  the  society  of  the  Western  world.  As  has  been  shown,  an 
ideal  feudal  government  had  been  evolved  of  a  limited  mon- 
archy, with  all  classes  represented  and  a  great  impulse  towards 
Christian  unity  had  begun.  It  is  now  necessary  to  see  wherein 
were  the  elements  of  failure. 

The  Eastern  Empire  could  not  free  itself  from  jealousy  at 
the  progress  of  the  barbarian  Franks  of  the  West.  Yet  the 
struggle  was  not  between  the  rival  Emperors;  for  the  German 


154  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Caesars,  Henry  IV  and  V  and  Lothar,  took  no  part  in  the 
Crusades.  The  crusading  kingdom  was  in  fact  an  international 
enterprise — all  nations  contributed  to  its  population,  though 
the  main  element  was  French.  But  the  fatal  effects  of  the 
movement  were  hereafter  to  be  seen  in  the  blow  it  struck 
at  the  power  of  Constantinople,  the  real  bulwark  of  Christian 
Europe. 

The  Latin  Kingdom  of  Jerusalem  and  its  dependent  prin- 
cipalities, instead  of  maintaining  good  relations  with  the  only 
neighbouring  Christian  power,  was  at  constant  variance  with 
the  Byzantines.  It  was  the  policy  of  the  Emperors  to  regard 
Antioch  as  a  fief  and  to  make  the  crusading  princes  do  homage 
for  their  possessions.  This  the  Prince  of  Antioch  and  the  Count 
of  Edessa  rendered  with  much  reluctance;  and,  as  though  they 
had  not  enough  to  do  to  guard  their  dominions  against  the 
encroaching  Moslem  powers,  they  had  not  the  prudence  to 
conciliate  the  Greeks. 

At  the  end  of  1144  Edessa  was  captured  by  the  Atabek  of 
Mossul  and  in  the  following  year  Pope  Eugenius  III,  under 
the  more  powerful  influence  of  St.  Bernard,  declared  for  a 
crusade.  At  Vezelay,  in  France,  and  at  Spires,  in  Germany, 
the  eloquence  of  Bernard  prevailed  and  the  crusade  was  com- 
manded by  Louis  VII,  king  of  France,  and  the  Emperor 
Conrad  III.  If  this,  the  second  crusade,  lacked  the  spontaneous 
enthusiasm  of  the  first,  at  least  it  embarked  under  more 
specious  auspices,  preached  by  the  leading  saint  and  most 
influential  churchman  of  the  age,  and  supported  by  the  two 
great  monarchs  of  the  Latin  West.  But  it  ended  in  a  pitiable 
disaster  and  the  conduct  of  the  German  soldiers  on  the  march 
completely  alienated  the  sympathy  of  the  Byzantine  Christians. 
The  French  were  better  disciplined  and  less  obnoxious  to  the 
Greeks;  nevertheless  it  is  significant  that  Louis  VII  was  ad- 
vised to  attack  Constantinople  in  conjunction  with  Roger, 
king  of  Sicily.  The  diplomacy  of  Manuel  Comnenus  prevented 
this  alliance,  the  idea  of  which  was  carried  out  little  more  than 
a  generation  later. 

In  most  popular  accounts  of  the  Crusades  little  or  noth- 


THE  CRUSADES  1 55 

ing  is  frequently  related  about  the  Eastern  Empire;  and 
it  used  to  be  very  widely  assumed  that  the  Byzantine 
Caesars  were  effeminate  princes  who  spent  their  lives  in  luxu- 
rious retirement,  hedged  in  by  a  ridiculous  court  etiquette, 
whilst  their  dominions  were  being  steadily  diminished.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  from  108 1  to 
1 181  there  were  three  successive  Emperors  with  long  reigns, 
all  distinguished  above  their  contemporaries  for  their  pru- 
dence, goodness  and  martial  vigour.  Despite  the  crushing 
defeat  of  Romanus  Diogenes  by  the  Seljukian  Turks  in 
1071  and  the  establishment  of  the  sultanate  of  Rum  in  the 
heart  of  Asia  Minor,  the  Eastern  Empire  was  still  a  great 
naval  and  military  power,  which  even  the  Normans  were 
compelled  to  respect.  All  the  house  of  Comnenus  were  men 
of  distinction;  and  the  three  Emperors  whose  reign  covers 
the  twelfth  century  were  worthy  of  being  classed  among  the 
great  rulers  of  the  world.  Alexius  Comnenus,  who  received 
the  Empire  at  the  point  of  extinction  and  restored  it  to  a 
position  of  influence,  was,  as  is  witnessed  by  his  attitude 
towards  the  Crusaders,  one  of  the  most  prudent  of  princes. 
His  son  John,  according  to  a  popular  story  called  by  his  sub- 
jects John  the  Handsome,  because,  though  insignificant  and 
unsightly  in  appearance,  his  was  the  best  of  rulers,  has  been 
called  the  Byzantine  Marcus  Aurelius.  John's  successor, 
Manuel,  was  an  intrepid,  if  not  always  successful  warrior, 
as  fearless  in  exposing  himself  to  danger  as  any  French 
or  Norman  knight.  The  adventures  of  Andronicus,  the  last  of 
this  series  of  emperors,  are  in  themselves  a  veritable  romance. 
It  is  now  no  longer  possible  to  draw  a  sharp  contrast  between 
the  vigorous  and  progressive  Franks  and  the  effeminate  Greek 
rulers  of  the  twelfth  century. 

The  rise  of  Nour-ed-din,  and  later  of  Salah-ed-din,  better 
known  as  Saladin,  brought  about  a  third  expedition  from  the 
West.  Egypt  had  been  under  the  sway  of  the  Fatimite  caliphs, 
who  were  not  orthodox;  and  to  this  was  in  part  due  the  weak- 
ness of  the  Moslem  world.  The  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  was 
already  extending  southward  and  a  Christian  conquest  of  Egypt. 


156  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

was  at  one  time  conceivable.  But  the  rise  of  a  great  leader 
gave  strength  and  unity  to  Islam,  and  was  the  signal  for  the 
downfall  of  the  Christian  kingdom.  In  11 54  Nour-ed-din 
from  Damascus  began  to  threaten  the  Christian  principality 
of  Antioch.  But  though  he  took  prisoner  Bohemond  III  and 
the  Count  of  Tripoli  the  power  of  the  Comnenian  emperors 
was  too  great  to  allow  him  to  attack  Antioch  itself.  Nour-ed- 
din  died  in  1174,  and  the  victorious  career  of  Saladin  began. 
Master  of  the  Mohammedan  world  of  Egypt,  Syria,  and  the 
possessions  of  the  Seljukian  Turks  in  Asia  Minor,  Saladin 
completely  hemmed  in  the  Christian  states  in  the  East;  but 
it  was  not  he  who  provoked  the  quarrel  which  led  to  their 
downfall.  To  this  the  collapse  of  the  dynasty  of  the  Comneni 
contributed;  for  the  last  of  that  able  house,  Andronicus,  a 
brutal  but  not  incapable  tyrant,  made  way  for  Isaac  Angelus, 
under  whom  the  ancient  vigour  of  New  Rome  seemed  to  de- 
cay. But  the  disorganization  of  the  Christian  states  in  Syria, 
due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  Templars  owned  no  ruler  but 
the  absent  Pope,  brought  about  the  catastrophe.  Renaud  de 
Chatillon,  the  Grand  Master,  disregarding  the  treaty  between 
the  Christians  and  Moslems,  attacked  a  caravan  and  captured 
Saladin's  sister.  This  was  the  signal  for  war  and  the  Christian 
army  was  utterly  defeated  by  the  Lake  of  Tiberias  in  July, 
1 187;  and  on  October  2d  of  the  same  year  Saladin  entered 
Jerusalem.  Only  Tyre  and  Antioch  remained  in  Christian 
hands.  The  work  of  nearly  a  century  was  undone:  a  third 
crusade  became  necessary. 

But  the  Europe  in  which  the  holy  war  was  preached  was 
not  that  of  Urban  II,  of  Godfrey  de  Bouillon,  and  of  Peter 
the  Hermit.  The  appeal  of  Pope  Clement  III  was  readily 
responded  to  by  the  princes  of  Europe;  but  there  was  none  of 
the  popular  enthusiasm  of  the  First  Crusade.  Policy  as  much  as 
piety  moved  the  armies  of  the  Cross. 

There  were  two  expeditions — the  German  under  the  Em- 
peror Frederic  Barbarossa;  and  the  French  and  English, 
commanded  respectively  by  Philip  Augustus  and  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion.  The  imperial  army,  numbering,  according  to 


THE  CRUSADES 


J57 


the  chroniclers,  a  hundred  thousand  men  or  more,  took  the 
land  route  through  the  Byzantine  dominions.  Their  advance 
was  marked  by  a  violence  and  brutality  which  still  further 
alienated  the  sympathies  of  the  Greeks  from  the  cause  of  the 
crusaders.  On  June  10,  1 190,  a  disastrous  accident  cost  the 
Emperor  Frederic  I  his  life  when  crossing  a  river  in  Asia  Minor, 
and  put  an  end  to  the  expedition.  Only  a  few  plague  stricken 
survivors  of  the  great  army  reached  the  crusading  force  be- 
fore St.  Jean  d'Acre.  The  crusade  centred  itself  around  this 
city,  the  siege  of  which  is  one  of  the  most  famous  in  history. 
From  1 1 89  to  1 191  it  resisted  the  immense  Christian  army;  but 
in  the  end  it  capitulated. 

Richard  I  of  England  on  his  way  to  the  Holy  Land  was 
driven  to  the  shores  of  Cyprus  and  captured  the  island  from 
Isaac  Comnenus,  who  had  been  proclaimed  emperor  by  the  in- 
habitants. This  was  the  first  direct  blow  struck  by  a  crusader 
against  the  Empire  of  Constantinople,  which  never  recovered 
the  island  thus  unscrupulously  seized  by  the  English  monarch. 
Richard  sold  Cyprus,  first  to  the  Templars,  and  later  to  Guy 
de  Lusignan,  king  of  Jerusalem.   But  despite  the  capture  of 
Acre  and  the  valour  of  Coeur  de  Lion,  the  Third  Crusade  did 
not    succeed   in   taking  Jerusalem.   The   quarrels    among  the 
crusading  chiefs,  notably  Philip  Augustus  and  Richard,  made 
concerted  action  impossible  and  even  the  death  of  Saladin  in 
1 193  did  not  enable  the  Christians  to  gain  the  Holy  City.  All 
that  Richard  could  do,  not  by  arms  but  by  negotiation,  was 
to  secure  English  pilgrims  access  to  Jerusalem. 

The  last  act  of  the  drama  of  the  long  Third  Crusade, 
which  lasted  till  1198,  was  an  attempt  of  the  imperial  house  of 
Hohenstaufen,  under  Henry  VI,  to  gain  supremacy  in  the  East. 
But  the  emperor  died  at  Messina,  September  28,  1197,  ar,d  in 
the  following  year  peace  was  signed  and  the  Christians  left 
in  possession  of  the  port  of  Beyrout.  One  of  the  permanent 
results  of  the  German  crusade  was  the  establishment  of  the 
Teutonic  Order  on  the  model  of  the  Hospitallers  and  Templars. 
The  fame  of  these  knights  was,  however,  destined  to  be  gained 
far  away  from  Palestine. 


158  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  story  of  the  Crusades  is  by  no  means  finished  in  1 198; 
but  the  spirit  of  the  first  soldiers  of  the  Cross  was  already 
practically  dead.  Though  doubtless  unaware  of  the  fact,  most 
of  the  princes  who  took  the  Cross  were  fighting,  not  a  holy 
war,  but  one  with  the  object  of  finding  an  outlet  for  the  com- 
merce of  Europe.  The  ports  of  Palestine,  not  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre, was  the  chief  object  of  most  expeditions.  The  pure  en- 
thusiasm of  an  earlier  day  had  vanished,  and  given  way  to  the 
modern  theory  that  the  "trade  follows  the  flag."  The  Fourth 
Crusade  about  to  be  described  is  one  of  the  most  shameful 
episodes  in  Christian  history. 

Innocent  III,  who  was  chosen  pope  in  1198,  was  in  some 
respects  the  ablest  of  all  the  medieval  pontiffs.  Cardinal 
Lothar,  of  the  noble  house  of  Segni,  was  elected  at  the  age  of 
thirty-eight,  and  threw  into  his  task  the  energy  of  youth  com- 
bined with  the  ripe  experience  of  a  man  bred  to  the  work  of 
administration.  The  political  situation  at  the  time  of  his  ac- 
cession was  unusually  delicate.  The  Norman  ascendancy  in 
Sicily  had  passed  by  marriage  into  the  hands  of  the  Emperors 
of  the  Swabian  house  of  Hohenstaufen,  and  the  power  of 
Germany  in  the  East  was  becoming  formidable  to  the  papal 
influence.  Henry  VI's  crusade  was,  in  fact,  a  menace  to  the 
papal  power;  as  already  the  idea  of  annexing  the  empire  of  the 
Greeks  by  seizing  Constantinople  had  been  broached.  With 
the  city  of  Rome  and  the  papal  dominions  held  as  in  a  vice  by 
a  monarch,  master  of  Northern  and  Southern  Italy,  especially 
if  he  also  possessed  Constantinople  and  could  support  the 
claims  of  its  Patriarch,  the  hope  that  the  Papacy  could  control 
the  world  would  be  at  an  end.  Innocent  III  recognised  this; 
and  resolved  that  the  next  crusade  after  the  death  of  Henry 
VI  must  be  a  papal,  not  an  imperial,  thrust  to  the  East.  For 
this  reason  he  devoted  himself  heart  and  soul  to  the  project. 

In  two  respects  the  Fourth  Crusade  resembled  the  First.  Its 
leaders  were  not  kings;  and  it  is  associated  with  the  preaching 
of  Fulk  of  Neuilly,  as  the  First  was  with  that  of  Peter  the  Her- 
mit. The  principal  crusaders  were  the  Count  of  Champagne, 
Simon  de  Montfort  (the  elder),  the  Count  of  Blois  and  Geoffry 


THE  CRUSADES  1 59 

of  Villehardouin,  Marshal  of  Champagne,  and  the  historian 
of  the  war.  Boniface,  Marquis  of  Montferrat,  had  been  chosen 
as  commander  when  the  army  was  ready  for  departure.  But  the 
real  directing  power  was  not  that  of  Pope,  preacher,  or  prince, 
but  the  Venetians,  the  most  active  traders  of  this  age. 

The  expedition  was  planned  to  embark  at  Venice.  The 
nobles  and  their  retainers  on  their  arrival  found  all  prepared 
to  convey  them  to  their  destination  upon  payment  of  their 
fares.  As  the  money  was  not  forthcoming,  the  Venetians  in- 
sisted on  their  working  for  it  by  assisting  in  the  capture  of  the 
Christian  city  of  Zara  from  the  king  of  Hungary.  The  scandalous 
agreement  was  opposed  by  the  better  crusaders;  but  the  ex- 
pedition started  accompanied  by  Dandolo,  the  blind  Doge  of 
Venice,  who  himself  took  the  Cross.  Zara  was  captured  in 
November,  1202. 

Affairs  in  Constantinople  invited  western  intervention.  The 
emperor,  Isaac  Angelus,  had  been  blinded  and  deposed;  and 
his  successor  Alexius  III,  was  bidding  against  his  nephew 
Alexius,  the  son  of  Isaac.  The  Pisans,  the  commercial  rivals  of 
the  Venetians,1  were  favoured  by  the  reigning  Emperor,  and  the 
Venetians,  who  naturally  supported  the  deposed  Isaac  and  his 
son,  persuaded  the  crusaders  to  go  to  Constantinople  in  order 
to  restore  the  rightful  sovereign.  The  semibarbarous  Latins 
were  amazed  at  the  sight  of  the  beautiful  city,  which  had  sur- 
vived all  the  devastation  of  the  Dark  Ages  and  lay  before  their 
eyes  in  all  its  splendor.  But  the  glories  of  New  Rome  neither 
daunted  their  courage  nor  moved  them  to  compunction.  There 
were  two  sieges,  in  1203  and  1204;  and  on  April  13th  the  im- 
perial city  was  abandoned  to  the  brutality  of  the  crusaders. 
Its  wealth  was  pillaged,  the  art  of  antiquity  perished,  the 
altars  and  shrines  were  not  spared,  and  piety  throughout 
Europe  was  stimulated  by  gifts  of  relics  ravished  from  the 
churches  of  the  Greeks.  This  amazing  crime  was  followed  by 
the  establishment  of  the  short-lived  Latin  Empire  in  Constan- 
tinople. No  one  protested  more  earnestly  and  vigorously  against 
what  had  been  done  than  Innocent  III;  but  he  was  obliged  to 
submit  to  the  inevitable   and   to   recognise  the   new  order. 


160  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY; 

Before,  however,  describing  the  establishment  of  the  Latin 
kingdom  it  is  necessary  to  review  the  situation.  Throughout 
the  twelfth  century  the  Greeks  had  shown  themselves  full  of 
vigour  and  enterprise.  Despite  the  inrush  of  the  Seljukian 
Turks  and  the  establishment  of  the  sultanate  of  Rum,  they  had 
held  their  own  and  even  compelled  the  Latin  princes  of  Syria 
to  acknowledge  their  supremacy.  Three  emperors,  men  of 
ability,  reigned,  as  has  been  already  stated,  for  ninety-nine 
years — Alexius  I,  famed  for  his  skilful  diplomacy,  John  for  his 
virtue,  and  Manuel,  the  knight  errant  of  the  Eastern  Empire. 
With  the  fall  of  the  Comneni  virtue  seemed  to  have  gone  out 
of  the  Greeks;  but  even  then  they  were  able  to  recover  suffi- 
ciently once  more  to  set  up  their  native  princes  in  Constantinople 
in  1 261.  But  the  conduct  of  the  crusaders  had  done  worse  than 
weaken  the  ancient  Empire,  the  eastern  bulwark  of  the  Chris- 
tian world.  Richard  I,  by  taking  Cyprus,  and  the  Venetians  and 
their  allies,  by  sacking  Constantinople,  completed  the  schism 
provoked  by  the  ambition  of  Michael  Cerularius  and  aggra- 
vated by  the  arrogance  of  the  Latin  envoys  in  excommuni- 
cating the  Patriarch  in  his  own  cathedral.  Henceforward  dis- 
trust of  the  Latins  became  rooted  in  the  Greek  mind;  and 
Western  Christianity  appeared  more  dangerous  than  Islam 
itself.  Cooperation  was  henceforward  almost  impossible  and 
the  empire  of  Turkey  in  Europe,  though  deferred  for  more  than 
two  centuries,  became  inevitable. 

The  news  that  Constantinople  was  taken  was  received  with 
enthusiasm  in  the  West.  The  Pope,  though  he  had  excommu- 
nicated the  Venetians  for  turning  a  crusading  army  against 
Christians,  was  compelled  to  accept  the  situation.  By  his  con- 
sent a  Latin  Empire  and  Patriarchate  were  established.  The 
choice  of  the  electors  to  the  Empire  fell  not,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  upon  Boniface  of  Montferrat,  but  on  account  of  the 
opposition  of  the  Venetians,  upon  Baldwin,  Count  of  Flanders. 
The  Patriarchate  was  given  by  the  Venetians  to  their  country- 
man Morosini.  The  new  empire  was  organised  on  purely  feudal 
lines,  and  lacked  the  coherence  indispensable  to  the  rule  of 
foreigners;  the  Church,  despite  the  prudent  efforts  of  Innocent 


THE  CRUSADES  l6l 

III  and  his  legate  the  Cardinal  of  St.  Susanna,  was  arrogantly 
Latin.  The  Greeks  set  up  independent  kingdoms,  the  most 
notable  being  the  Empire  of  Nicaea,  which  became  the  rallying 
point  of  the  discontented  clergy  as  well  as  laity.  At  last  Michael 
Palaeologus  obtained  the  assistance  of  the  Genoese  against  the 
Venetians,  who  had  hitherto  been  masters  of  the  situation,  and 
by  their  aid,  the  last  Latin  emperor,  Baldwin  II,  evacuated 
Constantinople  in  1261,  and  the  Greeks  were  once  more  in 
possession  of  their  capital. 

The  opening  of  the  thirteenth  century  witnessed  new  de- 
partures in  the  development  of  Christianity.  It  is  often  as- 
serted that  in  this  century  the  high  water  mark  of  medieval 
civilization  was  attained.  Judged  by  the  men  who  were  born  or 
flourished  within  it,  the  age  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  in  his- 
tory. Innocent  III,  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis,  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  Dante,  to  name  only  the  most  prominent,  would 
ennoble  any  century,  but  judged  by  its  fruits  it  is  one  of  the 
most  disastrous  in  history.  The  capture  of  Constantinople,  the 
establishment  of  the  Inquisition,  following  the  cruel  Albigensian 
war,  the  malignity  with  which  the  Popes  pursued  the  house 
of  Hohenstaufen  to  its  destruction,  throw  over  the  period  a 
cloud  of  infamy;  and  not  the  least  of  the  disgraces  of  the  time 
was  the  perversion  and  ruin  of  the  Crusades.  Within  the  first 
sixteen  years,  under  Innocent  III,  there  occurred,  first  the 
capture  of  Constantinople,  secondly  the  hideous  abuse  of  the 
crusading  spirit  by  directing  it,  under  the  same  promise  of 
pardon  as  was  given  to  those  who  warred  against  the  infidel, 
to  wage  war  against  heretics  in  Christian  Europe;  and  lastly, 
those  deplorable  and  unaccountable  outbursts  of  fanaticism, 
like  the  Children's  Crusade,  with  the  miserable  result  of  many 
wretched  children  being  kidnapped  and  sold  in  the  slave 
markets. 

Before  the  death  of  Innocent  III  the  Emperor  Frederic  II 
took  the  Cross;  and  at  the  great  Council  of  the  Lateran 
(121 5)  a  crusade  was  proclaimed  and  was  ordered  to  start  on 
June  1,  1217.  But  with  the  Christian  states  in  the  West  at 
hopeless  variance,  and  with  the  imminence  of  a  struggle  be- 


1 62  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tween  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire,  which  was  destined  to 
throw  all  earlier  ones  into  the  shade,  there  was  but  little  hope 
that  Christendom  could  hold  its  own  against  the  reviving 
strength  of  Islam.  By  1291,  with  the  fall  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre, 
the  last  traces  of  Christian  domination  in  Palestine  had  en- 
tirely disappeared.  The  causes  which  led  to  this  result  and  ul- 
timately to  the  appearance  of  the  Turks  in  Europe  must  now 
be  considered. 

The  crusade  begun  in  1218  differed  from  the  earlier  ones  on 
the  principal  attack  being  delivered  against  Egypt,  and  in  the 
political  game  which  throughout  its  course  was  being  played  be- 
tween the  Church  and  Empire.  Frederic  II  ought  to  have 
been  the  leader;  but  for  nine  years  he  repeatedly  made  prep- 
arations to  start  and  deferred  doing  so.  In  the  meantime 
the  conduct  of  the  expedition  was  in  the  hands  of  the  papal 
legate,  and  of  Jean  de  Brienne,  titular  king  of  Jerusalem,  whose 
daughter  Frederic  had  married.  Frederic's  delays,  and  his  known 
ambitions,  so  provoked  the  Pope  that  Gregory  IX  actually 
excommunicated  him  on  September  19,  1227;  and  Frederic  IPs 
expedition  to  the  East  in  the  following  year  transferred  the 
bitter  quarrel  to  the  scene  of  the  Crusade.  The  Grand  Masters 
of  the  Orders  of  Knighthood  forbade  their  soldiers  to  obey 
the  excommunicated  Emperor,  and  the  friars  openly  preached 
against  him.  Nevertheless  Frederic  succeeded  where  others 
had  failed;  and  by  peaceful  negotiation  Jerusalem,  Nazareth 
and  Bethlehem  were  handed  over  to  the  Christians  in  1229. 

But  it  was  only  for  a  short  time.  The  quarrel  between 
Frederic  II  and  the  Papacy  divided  Europe  and  the  Christian 
power  in  the  East  decayed.  Then  came  the  Mongol  invasion, 
which  threatened  Germany  and  even  Venice,  and  overspread 
Hungary  with  ruin.  Turning  southward  the  Mongols  made  a 
treaty  with  the  Sultan  of  Egypt,  and  in  1244  Jerusalem  once 
more  passed  out  of  Christian  hands. 

Rightly  to  understand  the  disasters  to  the  Christian  cause 
in  the  following  years  it  is  necessary  to  follow  closely  the 
politics  of  Western  Europe,  the  currents  and  cross  currents  of 
which  made  the  fall  of  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  inevitable. 


THE  CRUSADES  1 63 

The  only  character,  among  the  leading  men,  who  emerges  with 
credit  is  Louis  IX  of  France,  one  of  the  few  monarchs  who 
attained  to  sanctity  by  the  honest  discharge  of  his  duty  and 
by  his  capacity  to  show  himself  superior  to  the  factions,  whether 
imperial  or  papal,  which  divided  Christendom,  and  almost 
brought  it  to  ruin.  In  1248  Louis  embarked  for  Egypt  and  in 
the  following  year,  on  June  7th,  he  captured  Damietta.  In  De- 
cember he  advanced  on  Babylon  (Cairo)  to  meet  with  a  fatal 
defeat  in  which  the  Christian  army  was  destroyed  and  the  king 
and  his  brother,  Charles  of  Anjou,  made  prisoners.  Louis  was 
liberated  on  condition  of  his  evacuating  Damietta  and  paying 
a  large  ransom;  but  he  stayed  in  the  Holy  Land  for  four  years 
trying  to  strengthen  the  cause  of  the  Cross  and  to  obtain 
favourable  treatment  for  the  Christian  prisoners  in  Egypt.  It 
was  not  till  1254,  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  his  mother  Blanche 
of  Castile,  who  had  acted  as  regent,  that  he  returned  to  France. 
But  the  Christian  cause  was  being  lost,  not  in  Palestine  and 
Egypt,  but  at  home.  The  popes  were  bent  on  the  destruction 
of  the  power  of  the  Hohenstaufen  dynasty.  Frederic  II  died 
in  1250  and  the  popes  involved  themselves  in  a  policy  which 
was  destined  to  destroy  their  influence  by  placing  their  defence 
in  the  hands  of  Charles  of  Anjou.  That  ambitious  prince  shat- 
tered the  last  hope  of  the  Hohenstaufen  at  the  battle  of  Taglia- 
cozzo  in  1268,  became  king  of  the  two  Sicilies,  and  attempted 
to  carry  out  for  his  own  benefit  the  policy  of  Henry  VI  and 
Frederic  II.  For  this  reason  all  plans  for  uniting  Europe  in  a 
crusade  were  thwarted;  and  even  the  union  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  churches,  proclaimed  at  Lyons  in  1274,  was  prevented 
by  the  selfish  schemes  of  the  Christian  princes.  The  crusade 
of  Louis  IX  against  Tunis  in  1270  was  marked  by  the  death 
of  the  royal  saint  whose  enterprises  have  been  the  cause  of  the 
French  ambitions  in  Mohammedan  lands,  which  revived  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  addition  to  the  strife  of  princes  in  Eu- 
rope, the  two  mercantile  powers  of  Venice  and  Genoa  were 
striving  for  the  trade  supremacy  in  the  East,  and  were  quite 
prepared  to  sacrifice  that  of  Christianity  in  order  to  defeat 
one  another  in  the  race  for  wealth.  The  crusading  spirit  was 


1 64  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

in  fact  dead.  The  mamelukes  of  Egypt  who  had  succeeded  to 
the  dynasty  of  Saladin  once  more  gained,  from  Christian  and 
Mongol  alike,  the  supremacy  of  Palestine.  St.  Jean  d'Acre, 
the  last  great  crusading  stronghold,  surrendered  after  a 
glorious  defence;  and  in  1291  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  came 

to  an  end. 

To  understand  the  crusading  movement  it  is  necessary  to 
disabuse  the  mind  of  two  opposite  prejudices.  To  some  the 
very  name  crusade  suggests  romance.  The  soldiers  of  the  Cross 
are  in  sharp  contrast  to  all  other  warriors.  Inspired  by  a  high 
ideal  they  left  home  and  lands  to  fight  for  a  cause  which  could 
bring  them  no  profit  in  this  world.  To  save  the  Sepulchre  of 
Christ,  the  scenes  of  His  labours,  and  of  our  redemption,  they 
dedicated  their  arms  to  His  service.  This  makes  the  Middle 
Ages  with  all  their  faults  superior  to  those  of  the  modern  world. 
Then  men  were  ready  to  do  and  to  dare  all  for  what  they  be- 
lieved to  be  the  will  of  God,  and  the  recumbent  figure  of  the 
knight  in  an  ancient  church,  with  his  hands  in  the  attitude  of 
prayer  and  his  legs  crossed,  is  a  reminder  that  there  was  a  time 
when  men  had  nobler  ideals  than  we  now  cherish. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  to  whom  the  crusades 
appear  to  be  the  crowning  point  of  human  folly  and  ecclesi- 
astical wickedness.  The  Church,  according  to  these,  stirred  up 
the  worst  of  men  to  attack  a  people  more  advanced  in  civili- 
zation, and  induced  them  to  go  to  their  ruin  by  vain  promises 
of  future  happiness.  The  crusades  are  the  ripened  fruit  of  the 
ignorance,  prejudices,  and  superstition  of  the  Dark  Ages. 
They  are  the  crowning  crime  of  medieval  Europe,  the  supreme 
example  of  that  infatuation  which  a  bad   religion  is  able  to 

inspire. 

Neither  estimate  is  true.  The  noble  spirit  of  the  crusades 
was  by  no  means  universal,  nor  was  the  folly  everywhere  ap- 
parent. The  crusades  were  the  outcome  of  the  awakening  of 
Western  Europe  in  the  eleventh  century.  It  was  not  senseless 
fanaticism  which  made  men  realise  the  importance  of  Palestine. 
True  they  were  attracted  by  the  thought  that  it  was  the  scene 
of  the  Saviour's  life,  but  it  was  also  the  key  to  the  Empire  and 


THE  CRUSADES  1 65 

commerce  of  the  East.  It  was  the  base  also  from  which  Egypt 
could  be  won  back  for  the  Christian  world,  and  this  project 
seemed  at  times  capable  of  being  accomplished.  The  crusades 
were  in  short  an  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  today — the 
settlement  of  the  question  of  the  nearer  East.  They  failed  be- 
cause the  powers  of  the  West  could  not  be  brought  to  co- 
operate. Each  feared  the  others'  success.  When  the  Papacy 
seemed  likely  to  be  the  chief  gainer,  the  Empire  intervened; 
when  the  German  sovereigns  appeared  to  be  in  the  way  of 
establishing  themselves  as  the  Christian  masters  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, France  stepped  in  to  secure  the  prize.  The  Byzan- 
tines, in  the  days  of  their  power  under  the  Comneni,  tried  to 
secure  the  lands  conquered  by  the  Franks,  and  the  Franks  re- 
taliated by  abusing  the  weakness  of  Constantinople.  Properly 
conducted  the  crusades  might  have  saved  Europe  untold  suffer- 
ing. The  chances  of  success  were  often  of  the  brightest.  But 
all  was  marred  by  the  disorganization  of  the  armies  of  the 
Cross,  and  the  anarchy  of  the  Christian  states  in  the  East. 
Not  for  the  last  time  did  the  crusades  show  the  futility  of  the 
concert  of  the  powers,  the  joint  action  of  Christian  armies, 
spheres  of  influence,  and  leagues  of  nations.  If  they  succeeded 
better  than  some  modern  attempts  and  had  more  durable  re- 
sults, they  failed  for  very  similar  reasons. 

The  loss  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre  in  1291  is  one  of  the  landmarks 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Christendom,  which  had  been  constantly 
advancing  during  the  previous  centuries,  began  to  recede  not 
only  in  the  territory  which  it  occupied  in  its  ideals.  It  was  the 
same  in  one  sense  with  its  great  rival,  the  religion  of  Mo- 
hammed. True  this  was  destined  vastly  to  increase  the  sphere 
of  its  influence;  but  whereas,  till  the  death  of  Saladin  it  had 
competed  with  Christianity  as  a  civilizing  power,  after  the 
middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  it  became  identified  with 
barbarism. 

The  reason  for  this  decline  is  to  be  found  in  the  rise  of  the 
Mongol  power  in  the  remote  East.  The  hordes  of  barbarians 
who  had  overwhelmed  the  Roman  world  in  Europe  had  all 
acknowledged  the  religion  of  the  Cross  and  were  incorporated 


1 66  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

in  the  churches  of  Old  or  New  Rome.  But  with  the  rise  of  the 
mighty  empire  of  Genghis  Khan  in  central  Asia  the  Mongols 
overran  Eastern  Europe,  reduced  Russia  to  subjection,  and 
spread  terror  throughout  Hungary  and  the  Balkans.  Others  es- 
tablished their  authority  in  Persia,  Mesopotamia,  Asia  Minor, 
and  Syria. 

The  invaders  at  first  maintained  a  strict  impartiality  as  to 
religion.  Nestorian  Christians  were  in  their  army  and  the 
Khans  showed  an  interest  in  the  Faith,  nor  did  they  reject 
the  preachers  of  Catholic  doctrine.  In  fact  the  Christians 
looked  not  without  hope  towards  the  invaders  to  assist  them 
against  Islam.  For  a  brief  period  there  was  a  surprising  revival 
of  missionary  activity  in  the  Western  Church,  into  which  the 
Friars  threw  themselves  with  enthusiasm.  China  seemed  to  be 
opening  to  their  efforts  and  the  travels  of  such  men  as  the 
Polos,  Venetian  merchants,  paved  the  way  for  the  Gospel. 

Although  there  were  no  more  Christian  expeditions  to  con- 
quer the  Holy  Land,  the  interest  in  the  crusades  had  by  no 
means  ceased,  and,  if  the  pen  had  been  mightier  than  the 
sword,  Jerusalem  would  have  been  easily  brought  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Cross.  A  literature  to  account  for  the  failure 
of  the  crusades  sprang  up  and  innumerable  theories  were  ad- 
vanced to  secure  future  success.  The  rising  school  of  French 
lawyers  were  especially  active,  notably  Pierre  Dubois  of 
Coutances,  and  William  of  Nogaret.  In  1307  Dubois  ad- 
dressed his  treatise,  "On  the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Land"  to 
Edward  I  of  England,  who  had  always  taken  an  interest  in 
the  crusades,  since  his  own  expedition  to  the  East  in  1270. 
Like  all  other  writers  Dubois  attributed  the  loss  of  Palestine 
to  the  discords  among  the  Christian  princes.  To  remedy  this 
evil  a  general  council  was  to  be  held  to  reconcile  them  all,  and 
engage  them  in  the  great  enterprise.  The  Church  was  to  be 
purified  by  the  confiscation  of  its  property,  and  the  Cardinals 
were  to  live  in  holy  poverty  in  France,  whither  the  Pope  was 
to  repair  after  ceding  his  temporal  power  to  Philip  the  Fair. 
Above  all  the  quarrels  of  the  two  military  orders  were  to  be 
ended  by  the  fusion  of  the  Templars  and  the  Hospitallers  into 


THE  CRUSADES  1 67 

a  single  body.  With  the  immense  church  revenues  a  Christian 
army  was  to  be  formed  of  which  each  prince  was  to  contribute 
his  quota.  The  armies  of  the  different  nations  were  to  be 
strictly  disciplined  and  to  march  each  under  its  own  banner, 
and  distinguished  from  the  others  by  a  peculiar  uniform.  Each 
city  was  to  have  its  own  "dux  belli."  But,  as  the  real  obstacle 
to  success  was  the  persistent  commerce  which  the  Christians 
carried  on  with  infidels,  an  international  court  of  three  bishops 
and  three  laymen  was  to  be  created,  with  power  to  punish 
any  nation  guilty  of  treasonable  intercourse  with  the  enemy. 
Schools  were  to  be  established  to  teach  oriental  languages,  and 
to  promote  intercourse  with  the  Christians  of  the  East.  Such 
were  the  theories  advanced  in  the  book  De  recuperatione 
Terra  Sanctcd.  William  of  Nogaret  was  more  intent  on  the 
practical  scheme  of  ruining  the  Order  of  the  Templars  for  the 
benefit  of  the  French  crown.  This  crime,  as  will  appear  here- 
after, for  whatever  may  have  been  the  faults  of  the  Knights, 
there  is  no  doubt  as  to  their  military  efficiency,  was  perpetrated 
by  intrigue  with  the  Papacy,  and  by  legal  chicane. 

But  everything  in  the  fourteenth  century  contributed  to 
the  abandonment  of  the  East  by  the  Western  powers  of  Europe. 
The  papal  government  had  been  moved  to  Avignon  in  France, 
and  the  prestige  of  the  institution  had  fallen  far  below  that 
which  it  had  previously,  and  in  a  measure  deservedly,  enjoyed. 
No  longer  was  it  possible  for  a  papal  excommunication  to  con- 
vulse a  kingdom.  In  vain  did  pope  after  pope  launch  thunders 
against  those  who  dared  to  trade  with  Egypt.  Spiritual  terrors 
could  not  make  men  disregard  the  interests  of  finance.  Friar 
Florentine  of  Padua  showed  that  Egypt  could  be  conquered 
by  a  three  years'  commercial  boycott;  but  this  did  not  prevent 
the  Venetians  from  supplying  that  country  with  indispensable 
commodities,  even  selling  Christian  slaves  destined  to  swell  the 
ranks  of  the  formidable  army  of  mamelukes.  In  addition  to 
this  the  hundred  years'  war  between  England  and  France  had 
broken  out  and  prevented  either  nation  from  crusading  enter- 
prises. As  for  the  Empire  it  was  hopelessly  weakened  by  its 
strife  with  the  Papacy,  and  besides  the  invading  Mongols  were 


1 68  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

threatening  its  frontiers.  The  days  of  the  Council  of  Clermont 
with  its  cry  of  "God  wills  it,"  could  never  return. 

A  nobler  side  to  the  gloomy  picture  is  the  extension  of 
Western  Christian  missions  in  the  far  East.  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi  started  to  preach  to  the  Moslems  in  121 2  and  a  few 
years  later  appeared  before  the  Sultan  of  Egypt  and  declared 
his  message.  He  was  dismissed  with  the  honour  which  Mo- 
hammedans often  pay  to  the  inspired  even  though  professing 
another  religion.  It  is  recorded  of  him  that  he  endeavoured  to 
prevent  the  Christians  from  engaging  in  battle  with  the  Sara- 
cens, and  he  left  behind  him  eleven  of  his  disciples  to  declare 
the  Gospel.  In  1220  a  Franciscan  province  was  organized 
by  Brother  Benedict  of  Arizzo.  But  the  great  missionary  of 
the  century  was  Raymond  Lull,  who  planned  his  work  on  al- 
most modern  lines.  Son  of  a  Catalonian  noble  who  had  settled 
in  Majorca,  Lull  had  lived  a  secular  life  devoting  his  time  to 
learning  and  the  gay  science  of  the  troubadours.  Becoming 
more  serious  he  abandoned  the  world  after  providing  for  his 
wife,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  missionary  work. 
In  1275  he  planned  his  "Grand  Art,"  in  which  he  endeavoured 
to  combine  all  knowledge.  By  his  persuasion  the  King  of  Ma- 
jorca founded  a  monastery  for  thirty  Franciscan  friars  to  study 
Arabic.  For  ten  years  Lull  gave  them  instruction,  and  wrote 
Arabic  tracts  wherewith  to  convert  the  Mohammedans.  He 
recognised  that  the  Gospel  could  not  be  propagated  by  force  of 
arms,  that  crusading  was  the  wrong  method,  and  that  what 
was  needed  was  to  try  Christ's  manner  of  converting  mankind. 
He  spent  his  life  advocating  the  cause  of  his  mission  before 
popes,  kings,  and  councils,  notably  that  of  Vienne  in  131 1. 
He  went  to  Tunis  and  preached  in  constant  danger  of  his  life, 
and  after  suffering  persecution  and  imprisonment  was  dis- 
covered, though  disguised  as  an  Arab,  and  put  to  death  in 
1 3 14,  a  martyr  in  his  eightieth  year. 

The  remoter  East  seemed  to  offer  a  more  promising  field, 
and  in  1253  there  was  a  Society  of  "Voyagers  for  Christ" 
formed  at  the  suggestion  of  St.  Louis,  Peregrinantes  proper 
Christum,  founded  by  Innocent  IV  and  composed  of  Francis- 


THE  CRUSADES  1 69 

cans  and  Dominicans.  At  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury most  of  Asia  was  part  of  a  vast  Mongol  empire,  the  head 
of  which  with  the  title  of  "Son  of  Heaven"  made  Kambalik 
(Pekin)  his  residence,  and  his  authority  extended  over  China, 
Mongolia,  Thibet  and  Indo  China.  The  other  great  Mongol 
kingdoms  were  those  of  the  Golden  Horde — Russia,  including 
the  Caspian  and  the  Ural  mountains,  Persarmenia,  and  Trans- 
oxiana  and  Chinese  Turkestan.  In  these  the  Nestorians  had 
long  laboured  with  success  and  the  Papal  missions  were  en- 
couraged by  the  patronage  of  many  of  the  rulers.  The  golden 
age  of  Latin  missionary  enterprise  was  the  pontificate  of  John 
XXII  (13 16-1334),  who  was  constantly  sending  missionaries, 
generally  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  to  the  remotest  parts 
of  the  East.  Arch-episcopal  provinces  were  founded,  each  with 
several  suffragans.  As  early  as  1279  the  Franciscan  preachers 
had  reached  China,  and  in  1308  an  archbishop  of  Pekin  was 
nominated  by  the  Pope  with  seven  suffragans  under  him,  and 
in  13 14  there  were  no  less  than  fifty  Franciscan  converts  in  the 
country.  Friar  Ordeni  of  Pordenone,  an  indefatigable  traveller 
who  visited  India,  traversed  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  reached 
Southern  China  by  sea,  testifies  to  the  fact  that  everywhere 
Christians  were  to  be  found  labouring  in  the  mission  field. 

But  this  bright  prospect  was  destined  soon  to  be  com- 
pletely overclouded.  The  Mongol  dynasty  of  China  was  over- 
thrown in  1368,  and  with  it  the  hopes  of  founding  a  Christian 
Church.  There  is  a  mention  of  an  Archbishop  of  Pekin  in  1456, 
but  it  is  not  known  whether  he  was  permitted  to  reside  there. 
All  trace  of  the  church  in  China  seems  to  have  vanished.  The 
closing  years  of  the  fourteenth  century  saw  the  rise  of  the 
famous  Timour,  or  Tamerlane,  the  conqueror  of  India.  With 
him  the  Mongol  power  became  definitely  Mohammedan,  em- 
bracing the  creed  of  Islam  in  its  most  persecuting  form.  The  last 
hope  of  medieval  Christianity  in  the  Far  East  was  dissipated 
and  became  scarcely  a  memory.  The  noble  effort  to  conquer 
the  East  by  the  preaching  of  Christ  failed,  more  creditably  it 
is  true,  but  as  completely  as  that  of  subduing  Islam  by  the 
sword  of  the  Christian  warrior. 


170  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

It  is  now  necessary  to  record  the  appearance  of  the  most 
terrible  foe  Christianity  had  yet  encountered  in  the  rise  of  the 
Ottoman  Turks.  With  the  abandonment  of  the  Holy  Land  in 
1 291  things  gradually  had  gone  back  to  the  condition  before 
the  Crusades.  The  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem  were  resumed  and 
Franciscan  convents  were  established  in  connection  with 
various  holy  places  in  Palestine.  The  Hospitallers  had  seized 
Rhodes,  which  nominally  belonged  to  the  Greeks,  but  had 
become  a  haunt  of  pirates.  The  de  Lusignans  reigned  as  kings 
of  Cyprus,  maintaining  a  formidable  navy  and  a  sumptuous 
court.  Crusades  were  projected,  the  princes  of  Europe  at  times 
solemnly  took  the  Cross,  but  nothing  practical  was  effected. 
The  empire  of  the  Greeks  decayed  but  as  yet  Europe  was 
practically  intact  and  entirely  Christian.  At  last,  in  1366,  the 
Ottoman  Turks  gained  a  footing  on  the  Gallipoli  peninsula, 
and  henceforward  Crusades  ceased  to  be  offensive  and  became 
defensive  wars.  Christianity  had  in  the  fifteenth  century  to 
fight,  not  for  conquest,  but  for  existence. 

AUTHORITIES 

For  the  First  Crusade  the  contemporary  authorities  are  Guibert  of  No- 
gent,  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos,  an  anonymous  Gesta  Francorum  et  aliorum  Hiero- 
solymitorum;  Raymond  of  St.  Gilles  (Migne,  P.  L.,  156),  and  Fulcher  of 
Chartres.  William,  Archbishop  of  Tyre  (d.  1199),  is  the  writer  who  makes 
Peter  the  Hermit  the  originator  of  the  scheme,  which  none  of  those  who 
lived  at  the  time  have  done.  The  Greek  authority  is  Anna  Comnena,  Life 
of  her  Father,  the  Emperor  Alexius  Comnenus  (Migne,  P.  G.,  Vol.  131).  The 
reader  is  advised  to  consult  the  bibliography  to  Urban  II,  in  Mann's  Lives 
of  the  Popes,  Vol.  VII,  and  L.  Brehier,  L'eglise  et  Vorient  des  croisades.  He 
should  of  course  read  Gibbon,  Ch.  LVIII. 

The  Feudal  Kingdom  of  Jerusalem  and  the  laws  of  its  Assize  are  described 
in  Gibbon  at  the  end  of  Ch.  LVIII.  I  have  found  L.  Brehier's  op  cit.,  Chap- 
ter V,  on  the  organization  of  the  Christian  States  most  useful.  See  his  arti- 
cles on  "Crusades"  and  "Jerusalem"  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia.  There  are 
copious  bibliographies  in  Workman's  article  on  "Crusades"  in  Hastings' 
Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics.  For  maps  see  the  works  referred  to  in 
Chapter  IV.  For  Medieval  Jerusalem  use  Conder,  The  City  of  Jerusalem. 

The  conduct  of  the  Germans  in  the  Second  Crusade  is  described  by  Odo 
of  Deuil,  De  Profectione  Ludovici,  VII  (Migne,  P.  L.,  Vol.  135),  who  repro- 
bates the  cruelty  and  wanton  destruction  they  exhibited  at  Constantinople. 
See  J.  Cotter  Morison,  Life  and  Times  of  St.  Bernard,  Bk.  IV.  For  the  Later 
Crusades  there  is  S.  Lane  Poole's  Saladin  and  E.  Pears'  Fall  of  Constanti- 


THE  CRUSADES  171 

nople.  Bishop  Stubbs  edited  the  original  works  about  Richard  I  of  England's 
crusade  in  the  Rolls  Series.  G.  de  Villehardouin  and  Joinville  are  contempo- 
rary authorities  for  the  Capture  of  Constantinople  and  the  Crusade  of  St. 
Louis  IX  to  Egypt.  These  are  among  the  oldest  books  in  French  prose. 
Rennell  Rodd,  The  Princes  of  Achaia,  should  be  consulted  for  the  Latin 
Empire  in  Byzantium.  Brehier,  op.  cit.,  is  most  interesting  on  the  subject 
of  the  plans  for  a  crusade  after  the  fall  of  Acre.  Consult  R.  Lane  Poole, 
Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought,  for  Pierre  du  Bois. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LEARNING   AND   HERESY   IN   THE    EARLY   MIDDLE   AGES 

The  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  —  Augustine  and  Dionysius  —  Cassiodorus  —  Monas- 
tic schools  —  St.  Anselm  —  Plato  and  Aristotle  —  Nominalism  and  realism  — 
East  and  West  —  Meagreness  of  the  "sciences" — School  books  —  Few  books  and 
much  thought  —  Abelard  —  Anselm  of  Laon  —  Abelard  a  monk  —  Arnold  of 
Brescia  —  St.  Bernard  —  Influence  of  St.  Paul  on  Christian  thought  —  Marcion  — 
Paul  of  Samosata  —  The  Manichxans  —  Innovations  in  the  Church  —  Paulician- 
ism  —  Anticlericalism  —  The  Bogomili  —  Heresy  in  the  West  —  Languedoc  — 
Low  condition  of  the  church  —  The  Albigensians  —  Peter  of  Brueys  —  Henry 
the  Deacon  —  Rapid  spread  of  heresy  —  Tolerant  attitude  of  the  Church  —  Cis- 
tercians sent  Languedoc  —  St.  Dominic  —  Peter  of  Castelnau  murdered  —  A 
crusade  proclaimed  —  Albigensian  war  —  Persecution. 

The  mind  of  the  Middle  Ages  found  its  best  expression  in 
stone.  Whether  in  the  city,  the  cathedral,  or  the  castle,  it  is 
preeminent  for  the  excellence  of  its  work  and  the  variety  of  its 
design.  No  two  cathedrals  are  alike,  yet  scores  are  poems  in 
themselves.  And  it  may  be  truly  said  that  in  those  days  men 
not  only  worked  but  thought  in  stone.  Out  of  barbarism  they 
built  a  new  civilization  with  hard  and  durable  material.  Their 
master  minds  were  above  all  strong,  whether  Popes  like  Greg- 
ory VII  and  Innocent  III,  legalists  like  the  great  French  and 
Norman  lawyers,  rulers  like  Edward  I  of  England,  saints  and 
sinners;  all  alike  laboured  with  a  view  to  the  permanence  of 
their  work.  Their  object  was  to  create  a  stable  religious  and 
political  system,  an  enduring  philosophy  and  legal  code,  and 
generally  to  settle  all  questions  on  a  firm  basis.  In  this  attempt 
the  merits  and  defects  of  medievalism  are  equally  apparent. 

The  educational  system  was  based  on  the  seven  liberal  arts 
as  enumerated  in  A.D.  425  by  Martianus  Capella,  an  African 
neo-Platonist,  in  an  allegory  on  the  marriage  of  Philology  and 
Mercury.  The  three  first — the  Trivium — are  Grammar,  Dia- 
lectic, Rhetoric.  The  remaining,  Geometry,  Arithmetic,  As- 
tronomy, and  Harmony,  make  up  the  Quadrivium.  The  author 

172 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 73 

most  used  in  medieval  studies  was  Anicius  Boethius,  the  min- 
ister of  Theodoric  at  Rome  and  the  last  of  the  Latin  philos- 
ophers, who  with  Symmachus  was  for  some  unknown  reason 
imprisoned  and  put  to  death  in  A.D.  525.  During  his  imprison- 
ment Boethius  wrote  his  De  Consolatione  Philosophic?,  for  many 
generations  one  of  the  most  widely  read  of  books.  He  also  pre- 
served parts  of  Aristotle  for  the  Latin  world  by  his  translations 
and  comments,  and  by  his  commentary  on  Porphyry's  Intro- 
duction to  the  Categories  of  Aristotle  he  provided  logical 
material  for  the  endless  controversies  in  the  medieval  schools. 
Several  theological  treatises  were  also  ascribed  to  him. 

The  theology  was  mainly  based  on  Augustine's,  but  al- 
most equally  potent  was  the  influence  of  Dionysius  the  Areo- 
pagite  (Acts  XVII,  34),  the  convert  of  St.  Paul,  and  the  first 
Bishop  of  Athens.  The  writings  attributed  to  him  really  belong 
to  the  fifth  century,  and  are  the  work  of  some  neo-Platonic 
Christian  philosopher.  They  deal  with  the  two  hierarchies  of 
heaven  and  earth.  God  in  the  Trinity  is  above  all;  all,  angels 
as  well  as  men,  are  united  with  God  through  Jesus.  Between 
God  and  man  is  the  ninefold  celestial  hierarchy,  who  raise  man 
to  God  by  the  three  stages  of  purification,  illumination,  and 
perfection.  The  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  like  the  celestial  is  com- 
posed of  three  triads.  The  three  sacraments  are  Baptism  = 
purification,  Communion  =  enlightening,  Chrism  (or  anoint- 
ing) =  perfection.  The  next  triad  are  the  threefold  ministry  of 
Hierarchs,  Light  Bearers,  and  Servers.  Below  these  is  that  of 
the  Monks,  the  Laity,  and  Catechumens.  The  tendency  of  these 
writings  is  mystical,  their  object  being  the  union  with  the 
divine,  and  they  were  a  powerful  stimulus  to  all  medieval 
imaginings. 

Such  were  some  of  the  most  powerful  influences  on  the 
development  of  medieval  thought  in  its  earlier  stages,  to  which 
may  be  added  the  increasing  interest  in  the  law  of  the  Church 
as  evidenced  by  the  many  collections  of  decretals  and  canons, 
and  the  devotional  services,  especially  in  the  various  monastic 
Breviaries.  Despite  the  prevailing  ignorance  of  Greek  in  Latin 
Europe,  Greek  ideas  had  much  fascination,  though  access  to 


174  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

them  was  almost  invariably  second  hand.  Neo-platonism  had 
a  very  important  part  to  play  in  the  development  of  Western 
thought.  Before  considering  this  subject,  it  may  be  well  to 
survey  briefly  the  system  of  instruction  which  prevailed  before 
the  appearance  of  what  is  known  as  scholasticism. 

The  honour  of  first  employing  Benedictine  monks  in  literary 
labour  probably  belongs  to  Cassiodorus,  long  the  minister  of 
the  successive  barbarian  rulers  in  Italy  in  the  sixth  century, 
who  at  the  age  of  seventy  retired  to  Vivarium  in  the  southern 
extremity  of  the  peninsula,  where  he  lived  a  monastic  life, 
dying  in  extreme  old  age.  His  literary  labours  were  indefati- 
gable, but  a  survey  of  them  is  enough  to  show  how  much  of 
his  work,  and,  indeed,  of  many  of  the  "fathers"  is  compilation. 
His  book  treats  of  the  art  and  discipline  of  the  Liberal  studies, 
and  on  the  Trivium  and  Quadrivium,  which  were  supposed  to 
embrace  the  whole  circuit  of  human  knowledge. 

In  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries  learned  monks  began  to 
play  a  considerable  part  in  the  life  of  the  time.  Monastic 
schools  flourished,  notably  in  Ireland,  where  the  study  of 
Greek,  and  even  Hebrew,  was  diligently  followed.  Later  the 
religious  houses  of  England  became  the  homes  of  learning  and 
produced  men  of  erudition  like  Bede,  Aldhelm,  and  Alcuin. 

The  eleventh  century  witnessed  a  remarkable  revival  of 
learning;  and  scholars  began  to  attract  numerous  pupils.  One 
of  the  earliest  was  Berengar,  whose  view  of  the  Eucharist 
caused  so  much  perturbation.  He  was  the  pupil  of  Fulbert  of 
Chartres,  whom  he  succeeded  in  Tours  at  the  school  of  St. 
Martin  in  1029.  Later  the  school  of  Bee,  the  monastery  founded 
by  the  Norman  knight  Herluin,  into  which  the  learned  Italian 
Lanfranc  was  attracted,  began  to  draw  away  students  even 
from  Berengar;  and  was  destined  to  become  still  more  famous 
under  Anselm,  who  succeeded  and  eclipsed  the  fame  of  Lan- 
franc as  a  teacher  at  Bee.  Both  these  eminent  men  became 
successively  Archbishops  of  Canterbury.  There  were  also  three 
great  teachers,  who  handed  down  their  principles  one  to  the 
other,  Roscelin  of  Chartres,  William  of  Champeaux  and  the 
celebrated  and  unfortunate  Abelard.  All  these,  orthodox  as 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 75 

well  as  those  suspected  or  condemned  for  heresy,  were  powerful, 
original,  and  courageous  thinkers. 

Anselm,  though  recognised  as  a  saint  and  doctor  of  the 
Church,  was  not  one  of  those  whose  timid  orthodoxy  is  con- 
tented with  repeating  what  others  have  said.  He  was  rather  a 
pioneer  of  a  new  philosophy,  and  even  of  a  new  theology.  An- 
selm's  faith  taught  him  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  was 
true,  and  his  intellect  demanded  that  it  should  also  be  in  ac- 
cordance with  reason.  Accordingly  he  set  to  work  to  discover 
the  reasonableness  of  every  Christian  dogma,  and  though,  as 
a  believer,  he  felt  bound  to  accept  the  teaching  of  the  Church, 
as  a  trained  thinker  he  felt  at  liberty  to  reject  any  explana- 
tion which  seemed  contrary  to  reason,  and  to  substitute  for  it 
one  which,  without  invalidating  the  doctrine,  made  it  accord 
with  the  judgment  of  a  fair  mind.  Thus  in  his  famous  Cur 
Deus  Homo  he  rejects  the  venerable  explanation  that  the 
death  of  Christ  was  a  ransom  paid  to  the  devil,  though  it  was 
supported  by  an  unbroken  chain  of  patristic  testimony,  and 
substitutes  for  it  the  more  reasonable  theory  that  Christ  of- 
fered himself  as  a  satisfaction  to  the  claims  of  divine  justice, 
which  demands  its  due  before  pardon  can  be  given  to  man- 
kind. In  his  opinion  every  Christian  mystery  appealed,  not 
only  to  the  faith,  but  also  to  the  reason  of  the  believer.  As 
archbishop  Anselm  showed  himself  a  most  deferential  subject 
of  the  Pope;  and  the  courage  with  which  he  defied  the  kings 
of  England  on  behalf  of  the  claims  of  the  Church,  is  matched 
by  the  resolute  stand  he  made  in  maintaining  the  claims  of 
reason  in  questions  of  theology. 

The  intricacy  of  the  problems,  which  exercised  the  minds 
of  the  thinkers  of  the  eleventh  century,  proves  that,  however 
low  Europe  may  have  been  in  political  and  material  civiliza- 
tion, its  condition  was  not  one  of  intellectual  barbarism,  nor  is 
the  impatience  with  which  the  modern  man  regards  the  sub- 
ject of  their  speculations,  or  his  ready  condemnation  of  them 
as  ignorant  and  foolish,  a  proof  of  the  superiority  of  his  intel- 
ligence. The  period  was  one  in  which  great  restriction  of 
knowledge  was  combined  with  much  mental  activity. 


176  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  question  at  issue  was  the  old  difference  between  the 
spirit  of  the  teaching  of  Plato  and  that  of  Aristotle.  The  Pla- 
tonic theory  is  that  all  we  perceive  by  the  sense  are  shadows 
of  forms  (ideas)  which  truly  exist  in  the  super-sensual  world. 
The  real  world  is  the  unseen,  the  objects  we  perceive  are  but 
types.  In  this  sense  men  are  regarded  not  as  individuals  but 
as  visible  indications  of  the  real  humanity  which  can  only  be 
apprehended  by  the  intellect.  The  tendency  of  this  Realism 
is  mystical:  it  regards  the  whole  as  all  important  to  the  neg- 
lect of  the  parts  of  which  it  is  composed.  In  other  words  per- 
sonality is  of  little  account,  and  the  supreme  goal  of  life  is 
not  self-development  but  the  loss  of  self  in  God,  the  Idea  of 
Ideas.  The  other  method  led  men  to  argue  in  the  opposite 
direction,  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  and  to  regard  the 
form  or  idea  not  as  a  reality  but  as  a  name  we  apply  in  gener- 
alising from  the  individual  to  the  conception  of  the  genus  to 
which  he  belongs.  This  leads  to  a  higher  regard  for  the  parts, 
of  which  the  whole  is  made  up,  to  thinking  of  mankind  as 
consisting  of  individuals,  the  salvation  of  each  one  of  whom 
is  a  matter  of  interest. 

From  considering  universals  less  as  realities  than  as  names 
applied  to  general  conceptions,  this  mode  of  thinking  is  called 
Nominalism  as  opposed  to  Realism.  Not  that  this  twofold 
method  is  confined  to  Greek  or  scholastic  thought.  It  applies 
to  all  theological  and  political  conceptions,  even  to  the  mod- 
ern socialistic  disregard  of  individual  liberty  and  development 
in  the  interests  of  "humanity,"  an  abstraction  in  which  birth, 
race,  character  and  countless  other  factors,  play  no  part. 
Such  then  was  the  problem  of  philosophy  which  men  in  the 
Middle  Ages  set  themselves  with  varying  fortunes  to  solve.  It 
will  be  hereafter  shown  that  so  far  from  being  constant,  or- 
thodox opinion  was  at  one  time  in  favour  of  the  realists,  in 
another  of  the  nominalists. 

The  equipment  with  which  the  philosophers  of  the  eleventh 
century  started  on  their  quest  was  indeed  limited.  The  mo- 
nastic spirit  of  the  age  discouraged  the  study  of  the  classics, 
which  were  read  by  a  few  ardent  students,  not  without  mis- 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 77 

givings.  And  the  Western  student  not  only  had  scanty  appa- 
ratus, but  was  held  within  strict  limits  by  the  need  for  main- 
taining theological  orthodoxy.  It  is  therefore  greatly  to  the 
credit  of  the  West  that,  whilst  in  Constantinople,  with  all  the 
accumulated  literary  treasures  of  antiquity,  with  its  schools 
and  professors,  scholarship  was  tied  so  firmly  to  the  past  as  to 
make  progress  of  thought  well-nigh  impossible,  in  the  half 
barbarous  Paris  at  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  the 
human  intellect  was  preparing  to  tackle  the  gravest  problem 
of  philosophy. 

It  is  almost  with  a  shock  that  one  realises  how  amazingly 
simple  were  the  "sciences"  of  the  Trivium  and  Quadrivium, 
that  Geometry  meant  no  more  than  an  elementary  and  mostly 
incorrect  geography,  and  that  mathematical  studies  were 
mainly  directed  to  the  seasons  of  the  Church.  There  is  an  in- 
teresting description  of  the  books  used  at  Reims  by  the  fa- 
mous Gerbert,  afterwards  Pope  Sylvester  II  (999-1003),  a 
man  whose  learning  was  so  vast  that  he  was  gravely  sus- 
pected by  subsequent  generations  of  being  a  magician.  He  used 
in  his  teaching  the  Isagogues  of  Porphyry,  translated  by  the 
rhetorician  Victorinus,  and  he  interpreted  these  secundum 
Manlium,  i.e.  according  to  the  principles  of  Boethius.  Then 
there  were  the  Categories  of  Aristotle,  id  est  prcedicamentorum 
librum,  Peri  ermenias — the  Topica,  which  were  translated  by 
Tully  into  Latin,  and  "expounded  by  Manlius  the  consul." 
For  rhetoric  or  literature  Gerbert  taught  from  three  poets, 
Virgil,  Statius,  and  Terence,  the  satirists,  Juvenal,  Persius, 
and  Horace,  and  Lucan  the  historiographer.  Aristotle  it 
may  be  remarked  was  only  known  as  a  logician,  as  none 
of  his  philosophical  works  had  yet  penetrated  into  Western 
Europe. 

There  is  in  the  Library  of  Caius  College,  Cambridge,  a 
manuscript  containing  a  list  of  books  which  should  be  part  of 
a  wide  education.  Dr.  Haskins  of  Harvard  who  has  edited  it 
attributes  it  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century;  and  it  is  re- 
markable the  stress  it  lays  on  classical  studies,  which  at  a  late 
date  were  comparatively  neglected  for  the  scholastic  philos- 


178  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ophy.1  The  scholar  is  to  have  a  note-book,  the  master  a  ferule 
to  strike  him  on  the  hand  for  his  minor  faults,  and  a  cane  to 
use  in  extremities.  But  he  is  not  to  have  a  whip  or  a  "scor- 
pion," or  to  beat  the  boy  cruelly.  When  the  pupil  has  learned 
his  alphabet  he  should  read  Donatus,  the  Eclogues  of  The- 
odulus,  and  the  moral  compendium  attributed  to  Cato.  Then 
he  is  to  go  on  with  Virgil,  Horace,  Lucan,  Ovid,  some  of  whose 
amatory  poetry  should  be  avoided,  as  also  his  Fasti.  Next 
Statius,  Cicero's  De  Oratore,  de  Amicitia,  the  Tusculans,  de  Senec- 
tute,  etc.  He  is  to  read  Martial  and  Petronius  (with  omissions). 
The  other  authors  recommended  are  Solinus,  Sidonius,  Quintus 
Curtius,  Livy,  etc.  His  grammatical  text  books  should  be 
Donatus  and  Priscian  and  he  should  study  prosody.  If  he 
wishes  to  pursue  the  liberal  arts  he  must  read  Boethius,  the 
Isagogues  of  Porphyry,  and  the  Categories  of  Aristotle,  also  his 
Metaphysics,  and  the  De  Interpretatione  of  Apuleius.  The  other 
subjects  treated  of  are  astronomy,  medicine,  church  and  canon 

law. 

The  last  paragraph  of  the  MS  is  specially  interesting  as 
revealing  how  the  scriptures  were  regarded.  The  Old  as  well  as 
the  New  Testament  must  be  studied.  First  the  Pentateuch  or 
rather  the  Heptateuch,  which  also  includes  Joshua  and 
Judges.  Then  the  pupil  should  hear  Ruth,  Kings,  and  Chron- 
icles, and  also  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Tobit,  Judith,  and  Esther. 
Happy  is  he  if  he  meets  with  Ethe  (PEzekiel),  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Daniel  and  the  Twelve  Prophets.  Let  him  feed  the  godly  medi- 
tations of  his  mind  on  Job.  Let  him  approach  Proverbs,  Eccle- 
siastes,  and  Song  of  Songs.  Useful  for  hearing  is  Wisdom, 
which  is  ascribed  to  Philo,  and  Ecclesiasticus,  composed  by 
Jesus  the  son  of  Sirach,  as  is  also  the  book  of  Maccabees.  No 
words  can  express  how  profitable  are  the  Psalms.  The  New 
Testament  contains  the  Gospels,  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  the 
Canonical  Epistles,  Acts,  and  Revelation. 

Rightly  to  understand  the  mind  of  Western  Europe  in  the 
twelfth  century  one  must  grasp  the  fact  that  its  very  meagre 
learning,  confined  to  a  few  books  in  a  single  language,  was 

harvard  Studies  in  Classical  Philology,  vol.  xx,  1909. 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 79 

enjoyed  by  some  of  the  ablest  men  who  have  appeared  in  his- 
tory. It  was  an  age  of  great  statesmen,  architects,  saints  and 
thinkers,  whose  work  has  endured  to  this  day.  In  it  men  boldly 
tackled  some  of  the  most  difficult  problems  of  philosophy. 
Perhaps  they  were  aided  by  their  very  disadvantages.  A  pro- 
found mind  if  it  has  few  books  to  feed  upon  gains  strength  by 
concentration.  In  an  age  of  active  intelligence  men  who  learn 
little,  think  much.  The  human  mind  was  awakening  after  a 
long  sleep  but  full  of  renewed  strength,  and  the  ignorant 
Western  Church  produced  far  greater  men  than  the  learned 
scholars  of  Byzantium. 

Nothing,  however,  is  so  illustrative  of  the  learning  of  the 
Middle  Ages  than  the  career  of  Abelard,  the  most  original  and 
courageous  thinker  of  the  twelfth  century:  Abelard  may  truly 
be  called  the  knight  errant  of  learning  of  his  age.  To  him 
every  famous  scholar  was  a  rival,  whom  he  burned  to  contend 
and  vanquish.  The  son  of  a  Breton  noble,  he  left  his  patrimony 
to  his  brothers,  and  wandered  forth  in  search  of  adventures  in 
the  schools.  He  assumed,  like  Voltaire,  a  name  which  was  not 
his  own,  and  made  it  immortal.  Born  in  1079  and  dying  in 
1 142  his  career  was  not  the  uneventful  life  of  a  cloistered 
scholar,  but  one  of  constant  excitement;  he  enjoyed  prosper- 
ity and  popularity,  but  also  had  to  bear  great  reverses.  No 
scholar  of  his  age  could  stand  before  him  nor  did  he  ever  suc- 
cumb till  he  encountered  a  saint  in  the  person  of  Bernard. 

Abelard  was  perhaps  originally  a  pupil  of  Rocelin,  the  chief 
nominalist  of  his  time,  but  when  about  twenty  years  of  age, 
he  appeared  at  the  episcopal  school  of  Notre  Dame  at  Paris, 
nominally  as  a  pupil  of  William  of  Champeaux,  Archdeacon 
and  Master  of  the  Cathedral  School.  William  was  the  cham- 
pion of  the  then  orthodox  Realism,  and  the  most  famous 
dialectician  in  Europe.  But  he  was  no  match  for  his  young 
disciple.  Abelard's  questions  exposed  his  inferiority  to  the 
whole  class  and  after  a  long  and  bitter  strife  William's  school 
was  emptied  and  his  pupils  flocked  to  the  new  teacher.  Thor- 
oughly humbled  as  a  scholar,  William  received  the  reward  of 
his  orthodoxy  in  the   bishopric  of  Chalons,  where   he  could 


180  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

practice  piety  under  the  guidance  of  Bernard,  and  enunciate 
his  opinions  without  fear  of  profane  interruption. 

Having  humbled  his  rival  in  dialectic,  and  thereby  made 
himself  enemies  without  number,  Abelard  next  turned  to  the 
theologians.  Anselm  of  Laon  was  the  most  admired  expositor 
of  Scripture  of  his  time.  Gifted  with  learning  and  an  amazing 
memory,  he  was  a  typical  professor,  in  so  far  that  he  was 
able  to  tell  his  pupils  all  that  others  had  said.  Abelard  came, 
heard,  and  scoffed.  His  companions  in  jest  suggested  that  he 
should  give  a  better  lecture.  He  accepted  their  challenge  and 
invited  them  to  choose  a  subject.  They  offered  Ezekiel,  one  of 
the  obscurest  books  in  the  Old  Testament.  Abelard  presented 
himself  in  the  lecture  room  the  next  morning.  A  few  came  to 
laugh  at  his  failure.  They  retired  amazed  at  his  learning,  and 
day  by  day  his  scholars  multiplied,  leaving  their  old  master  to 
speak  to  empty  benches.  Abelard  returned  to  Paris,  and  there 
took  the  chair  vacated  by  William  of  Champeaux.  He  was 
now  the  most  famous  teacher  in  the  world,  and  even  the 
rumour  that  he  was  heretical  could  not  deter  men  from  crowd- 
ing to  hear  him.  His  pupils  numbered  five,  or,  perhaps,  seven 
thousand.  Rich,  handsome  and  popular  he  had  now  reached 
the  apex  of  his  prosperity. 

Then  followed  his  intrigue  with  the  noble  Heloise,1  his  mar- 
riage and  the  cruel  mutilation  at  the  hands  of  ruffians  hired  by 
her  uncle  Fulbert.  In  his  disgrace  and  misery  Abelard  became  a 
monk  of  St.  Denys  in  Paris,  where  he  was  subjected  to  end- 
less petty  persecutions  at  the  hands  of  his  superiors.  But  he 
still  had  powerful  friends  and  devoted  admirers. 

Although  the  monastic  spirit  dominated  Western  Europe, 
there  were  two  parties,  one  of  which  may  be  called  "human- 
ist" and  the  other  "rigorist."  Abelard  since  his  misfortune 
had  honestly  embraced  the  monastic  life,  and  his  epistles  to 
Heloise  in  reply  to  her  ardent  letters  are  in  accord  with  the 
ascetic  spirit  of  the  age.  But  in  the  cloister  he  was  more  able 
to  bring  his  body  than  his  intellect  into  subjection,  and  men 

1  Abelard  was  not  a  priest  and  probably  not  even  in  major  orders.   The  turpitude 
of  his  conduct  has  been  unduly  emphasised. 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         l8l 

with  human  sympathies  rallied  to  him.  Suger,  Abbot  of  St. 
Denys,  one  of  the  first  of  the  great  ecclesiastical  statesmen 
who  made  modern  France,  was  his  friend,  so  for  a  time  was 
Pope  Innocent  II,  and  the  saintly  Abbot  of  Cluny.  Peter  the 
Venerable  was  full  of  admiration  for  Heloise,  and  of  friend- 
ship for  Abelard.  But  the  rigorists,  who  numbered  saints  in 
their  ranks,  scented  danger  in  the  teaching  of  Abelard,  espe- 
cially in  his  Sic  et  Non,  in  which  he  places  in  opposite  columns 
the  divergent  opinions  of  the  fathers  of  the  Church.  At  their 
head  was  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  the  great  Cistercian  ascetic 
and  mystic,  who  exerted  unbounded  authority  over  successive 
popes  and  virtually  dominated  the  Church  of  his  time.  Abe- 
lard's  books  were  burnt  at  Soissons  in  1121  and  twenty  years 
later  he  was  brought  before  a  council  at  Sens.  His  condemna- 
tion was  virtually  a  foregone  conclusion  and  he  was  hardly 
given  a  hearing.  His  appeal  to  Rome  was  contemptuously  dis- 
missed. He  retired  to  Cluny  where  he  was  placed  in  the  charge 
of  Peter  the  Venerable,  and  treated  with  much  tender  consider- 
ation till  his  death  in  1142.  His  nominalism  was  orthodoxy  in 
the  next  century,  but  had  he  then  been  condemned,  he  would 
probably  have  been  burned.  This  fate  befell  his  pupil,  Arnold 
of  Brescia,  a  man  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  cultured  Abelard. 

Abelard,  though  his  orthodoxy  was  suspected  by  the  Ber- 
nards of  his  day,  did  nothing  to  subvert  the  existing  order. 
His  teaching  may  have  appeared  dangerous,  his  philosophy 
unspiritual,  and  he  indulged  in  freaks  of  ill-timed  erudition, 
as  when  he  offended  his  colleagues  in  the  monastery  of  St. 
Denys,  by  saying  that  their  patron  was  not  the  author,  known  as 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite.  As  a  monk,  however,  he  made  himself 
unpopular  by  trying  to  reduce  the  monastery  of  St.  Gildas  in 
Brittany,  of  which  he  was  Abbot,  to  some  condition  of  dis- 
cipline and  order.  He  was  nevertheless  allowed  to  end  his 
days  in  peace.  Not  so  his  more  turbulent  pupil  Arnold. 

Arnold  was  a  Lombard,  a  native  of  Brescia,  which,  like 
other  north  Italian  cities  in  the  twelfth  century,  was  full  of 
the  spirit  of  civic  patriotism.  He  was  a  monk  with  a  reputa- 
tion for  austerity,  which  even  his  adversaries  could  not  deny. 


1 82  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

He  had  crossed  the  Alps  to  study  under  Abelard,  and  returned 
to  take  part  in  the  distracted  politics  of  Brescia.  As  a  monk, 
vowed   to  poverty,  Arnold  was  justified   in   denouncing  the 
wealth  and  luxury  of  the  clergy  of  his  age;  and,  had  he  done  no 
more,  not  even  St.  Bernard  could  have  blamed  him;  but  he  de- 
sired to  reform  the  entire  fabric  of  society  on  a  democratic 
basis.  In  1139  he  appeared  before  Innocent  IPs  Council  of  the 
Lateran,  charged  by  the  Bishop  of  Brescia,  not  with  heresy, 
but  with  schism  of  the  most  serious  kind.  The  assembled  pre- 
lates condemned  him  to  banishment;  and  he  repaired,  first  to 
Zurich,   and  finally  to  those  Alpine  valleys,  where  opinions 
akin  to  those  of  the  Waldenses,  who  afterwards  looked  up  to 
him  as  one  of  their  founders,  were  held.  Like  Abelard,  Arnold 
found  friends  among  men  of  spotless  orthodoxy,  and  one  of 
his  patrons  was  pope,  though  for  but  five  months  (1143-1144), 
as  Celestine  II.  In  the  pontificate  of  Eugenius  III  (1145-1153) 
Arnold  appeared  in  Rome,  then  the  scene  of  civil  disturbances, 
owing  to  the  determined  efforts  of  the  inhabitants  to  set  up  a 
republic  in  the  face  of  the  Pope  and  the  aristocracy.  He  was 
excommunicated  by  Eugenius  III,  who  had  been  a  Cistercian 
monk,  and  was  a  devout  disciple  of  St.  Bernard.  Though  pre- 
viously unversed  in  public  affairs  Eugenius,  as  Pope,  showed 
much  tact  in  dealing  with  the  republic  and  its  opposition  to 
the  temporal  power  of  the  Papacy.  Arnold,  though  not  the 
nominal  head,  was  a  moving  spirit  in  the  attempt  to  place 
Church  and  Empire  under  the  people.  His  eloquence,  charm  of 
manner,  and  austerity  of  life  won  him  many  admirers,  but  in 
the  end  he  succumbed  to  the  weight  of  constituted  authority. 
Hadrian  IV,  a  stern  practical  Englishman,  succeeded  Eugenius 
III,  and  dealt  firmly  with  the  republicans.  For  the  first  time 
the  Holy  City  was  smitten  by  a  papal  interdict.  This  reduced 
the  contumacious  citizens  to  submission,  and  Arnold  escaped. 
The  Emperor,  Frederic   Barbarossa,  and   the   Pope  were   for 
once  in  agreement  that  Arnold  must  be  suppressed.  He  was 
arrested,  sent  to  Rome,  and  put  to  death  in  11 55. 

The  great  opponent  alike  of  Abelard  and  Arnold  was  St. 
Bernard,  Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  the  Peter  Damian  of  another 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 83 

age.  Agreeing  with  his  adversaries  on  the  subject  of  monastic 
austerity,  and  on  the  need  for  the  reform  of  the  secularly- 
minded  clergy  and  religious  of  his  age,  he  was  a  firm  upholder 
of  the  papal  authority,  swift  to  detect  the  smallest  symptom 
of  independence.  He  at  once  recognised  the  dangers  which 
might  arise  if  Abelard  were  allowed  freedom  of  thought,  and 
Arnold  of  action,  and  set  himself  to  oppose  the  tendencies  of 
his  age.  Nor  were  the  gloomy  forebodings  of  the  saint  wholly 
without  justification. 

It  is  impossible  to  support  the  claim  that  the  Middle  Ages 
were  ages  of  faith  untroubled  by  doubts  or  heresy.  On  the 
contrary  the  persistence  and  variety  of  unorthodox  opinions 
were  very  marked,  especially  in  the  twelfth  century. 

It  is  frequently  asserted  that  S.  Paul,  if  he  did  not  create 
the  Christian  religion,  at  any  rate  called  Gentile  Christianity 
into  being.  But  a  careful  estimate  of  the  effect  of  the  Pauline 
writings  on  the  development  of  the  Early  Church  inspires  cau- 
tion in  accepting  such  a  hasty  generalization.  It  is  true  that 
his  writings  were  honoured  as  those  of  the  Apostle  and  univer- 
sally accepted,  and  that  some  of  his  positive  commands  were 
faithfully  fulfilled.  But  it  can  safely  be  asserted  that  the  the- 
ology of  Paul  was  not  always  that  of  the  Early  Church:  and 
that  his  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  is  not  the 
Church's  view  of  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh.  The  points  on 
which  the  Pauline  teaching  lays  most  emphasis,  those  of  jus- 
tification by  faith,  election  by  God's  grace,  the  redemptive 
power  of  the  Cross,  were  not  of  primary  interest  in  primitive 
Christian  circles.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  believe  that  the 
Gentile  churches  were  called  into  being  solely  by  Pauline  in- 
fluence; and  the  importance  attached  to  the  work  of  St.  Peter, 
if  based  mainly  on  tradition,  cannot  be  entirely  without  foun- 
dation. Indeed  it  would  be  no  easy  task  to  discover  in  the 
first  two  centuries  an  entirely  Pauline  Church,  or,  for  that 
matter,  a  piece  of  orthodox  Pauline  literature  outside  the 
Canon  of  the  New  Testament.1 

1  Much  as  I  admire,  I  cannot  agree  with  Dr.  Inge's  estimate  of  the  Apostle  in  his 
Outspoken  Essays. 


184  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  influence  of  St.  Paul  was  in  fact  more  personal  than 
universal,  and  he  affected  the  mass  less  than  the  individual. 
Popular  legends  concerning  him  were  few.  His  cultus  was  not 
widely  prevalent;  but  men,  who  thought  for  themselves,  when 
they  read  the  New  Testament,  turned  to  him.  One  of  the 
most  original  thinkers  of  the  second  century  was  Marcion  of 
Sinope,  who  thought  that  he  recognised  in  the  apostle's  anti- 
Judaism  real  Christianity,  as  well  as  a  revelation  of  God  as  he 
truly  was,  an  embodiment  of  the  love  of  the  Gospel,  rather 
than  of  the  justice,  proclaimed  in  the  Law.  Marcion's  inter- 
pretation of  Paul  was  remarkably  attractive,  and  he  became 
the  founder  of  the  most  formidable  of  the  Gnostic  sects,  the 
more  dreaded  by  the  orthodox,  because  his  system  was  not 
paganism  thinly  disguised  under  a  Christian  phraseology,  but 
professed  to  be  thoroughgoing  Christianity  with  moral  de- 
mands even  more  stringent  than  those  of  the  Church.  The 
Marcionists,  moreover,  were  not  a  cultured  sect  content  to 
propagate  their  opinions;  but  a  church,  with  buildings,  a 
priesthood,  and  even  martyrs,  of  their  own.  The  organization 
continued  at  least  as  late  as  the  seventh  century  and  its  prin- 
ciples outlasted  the  Marcionite  body  to  reappear  constantly  in 
various  forms.  Marcion  was  in  one  sense  a  Gnostic,  notably 
for  his  docetism  which  denied  the  reality  of  the  human 
Christ;  but  in  another  a  rigid  puritan,  and  follower  of  Paul. 

But  in  the  following  century  there  arose  another  Paul 
whose  influence  as  a  heretic  almost  equalled  that  of  the  Apos- 
tle as  a  teacher  of  truth.  Paul  of  Samosata,  Bishop  of  Antioch 
(c.  260),  affirmed  the  doctrine,  destined  to  become  so  dangerous 
to  Western  orthodoxy,  that  Jesus  instead  of  being  God  who  be- 
came Man,  was  a  man  who  became  God.  This  view  was  in 
accord  with  the  pagan  method  of  considering  that  the  bene- 
factors of  humanity  could  be  deified,  yet  it  also  squared  with 
the  Christian  idea  that  we  can  through  Christ  become  one 
with  God.  Centuries  after  Paul's  doctrine  had  been  con- 
demned by  the  Catholic  Church  and  he  had  been  deprived  of 
his  bishopric,  Adoptianism  had  to  be  repudiated  by  the 
Church  of  the  West. 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES  1 85 

Marcion  and  Paul  of  Samosata  considered  themselves 
Christians,  but  another  religion  appeared  in  the  third  century, 
with  the  important  consequence  of  a  revolt  from  the  Church  in 
later  years,  in  that  of  Mani,  with  its  dualism,  its  secret  mys- 
teries, its  grades  of  initiates,  culminating  in  the  "perfect" 
adepts.  This  strange  combination  of  Persian  and  Christian 
beliefs  inspired  terror  and  provoked  persecution,  and  at  the 
same  time  proved  irresistibly  attractive.  Even  Augustine  was 
for  a  time  spellbound  by  its  fascination. 

Amid  the  furious  controversies  which  divided  the  Christians 
of  the  East  among  Catholics,  and  Arians,  and  Monophvsites  of 
every  conceivable  variety,  strange  opinions  were  cherished  in 
secret,  the  Church  being  kept  in  the  path  of  orthodoxy,  less 
by  persecution  than  by  the  wise  toleration,  or  actual  encour- 
agement of  certain  innovations.  The  cult  of  the  Blessed  Vir- 
gin and  of  the  Saints,  the  passionate  reverence  for  relics,  the 
worship  of  holy  pictures  and  crosses  satisfied  the  desire  of 
many  for  the  indulgence  of  superstition  and  of  a  passion  for 
the  marvellous.  A  sensuous  religion  was  thus  supplanting  the 
more  spiritual  Christianity  of  antiquity.  And  at  this  very 
time  Mohammedanism  was  making  a  startling  appeal  to  the 
affrighted  East  by  its  severe  simplicity  as  a  religion,  and  the 
marvellous  success  of  the  arms  by  which  it  was  supported 
and  propagated. 

The  older  heresies  revived  and  flourished  in  the  south- 
eastern corner  of  Asia  Minor  on  the  Saracen  frontier  in  the 
form  of  Paulicianism.  The  sect  arose  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Samosata,  the  home  of  the  famous  Paul,  Bishop  of  Antioch. 
Their  enemies  declared  that  they  took  their  designation  from 
him;  but  it  seems  more  probable  that  they  assumed  the  name 
in  honour  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  whose  tenets  they  professed  to 
hold.  Indeed  their  leaders  often  took  Pauline  names,  Timothy, 
Titus,  Epaphroditus,  etc.,  as  special  disciples  of  their  master. 
They  eventually  became  so  strong  that  the  sect  had  to  be  sup- 
pressed by  force. 

The   Paulicians  were  heretics   on   certain   points   for  they 
held  adoptionist  views  in  regard  to  our  Lord's  person,  main- 


1 86  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tained  that  he  was  created  and  not  creator,  and  rejected  the 
Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Logos.  Thus  far  they  held  the  views 
promulgated  by  Paulus  of  Samosata,  though  they  maintained 
that  this  was  the  real  teaching  of  Paul  the  Apostle.  They 
went  counter  to  the  deepest  religious  feeling  of  their  age  by 
denying  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  was  ever-virgin,  and  they 
refused  her  the  title  of  Theotokos  (she  who  bore  God). 
Apparently  they  gave  the  Eucharist  a  mystical  interpretation, 
refused  to  venerate  the  Cross — regarding  it  as  an  accursed 
symbol — denied  infant  baptism  and  indeed  declared  "we  are 
in  no  haste  to  be  baptized,  for  baptism  means  death."  They 
were  strongly  prejudiced  against  the  clergy,  but  some  of  them 
counselled  their  followers  to  conform  to  Catholic  usages. 
They  also  held  strongly  dualistic  doctrines  and  some  main- 
tained that  it  was  not  God  whom  Moses  saw  but  the  devil. 
It  is  extremely  difficult  to  decide  whether  these  Paulicians 
were  a  sort  of  early  Protestants,  objecting  to  the  growing 
hierarchical  pretensions  of  the  Church,  or  decided  heretics. 
This  affects  all  the  enquiry  into  these  puritans  (cathari) 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  it  being  the  object  of  their  opponents 
to  show  that,  under  the  innocent  appearance  of  a  pretended 
desire  for  purity  of  worship,  was  concealed  indulgence  in  all 
the  worst  forms  of  ancient  heresy,  in  the  errors  of  Marcion, 
of  Paul  of  Samosata,  and  above  all  in  the  dreaded  dualism  of 
the  arch-heretic  Mani. 

Something  closely  resembling  Paulicianism  appeared  in 
Bulgaria  in  the  sect  of  the  Bogomili  (friends  of  God)  who  were 
supposed  to  derive  their  origin  from  a  certain  eponymous 
founder  Bogomil  in  the  tenth  century.  This  Slavic  sect  had 
many  of  the  characteristics  which  make  people  of  that  race 
such  formidable  fanatics.  Their  opinions  were  introduced  into 
Southern  France  and  the  terror  their  heresy  inspired  is  seen  in 
the  fact  that  " Bougre"  or  "Bulgarian"  became  the  vilest  con- 
ceivable term  of  abuse,  and  that  the  Albigensian  heretics 
were  thus  branded. 

The  first  great  Western  heresy  appeared  in  Spain  under 
the  name  of  its  leader  Priscillian  in  the  days  of  the  Emperor 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 87 

Gratian  (375-380).  He  was  at  first  acquitted,  but  was  put  to 
death  by  the  usurping  Emperor  Maximus  to  the  horror  of  St. 
Martin,  Bishop  of  Tours.  What  Priscillian's  actual  heresy  was 
is  not  certain;  he  was  accused  by  Spanish  bishops,  against 
whom  the  charge  of  gluttony  was  brought,  of  excessive  asceti- 
cism of  a  Manichaean  type.  Some  of  his  writings  were  preserved, 
and,  as  was  customary,  attributed  to  orthodox  fathers;  nor  do 
these  show  many  traces  of  heresy.  But  throughout  the  corre- 
spondence of  Pope  Leo  I,  there  are  warnings  to  the  Spaniards 
to  be  on  their  guard  against  Priscillianism.  Later,  in  the 
eighth  century,  Elipandus,  Bishop  of  Toledo,  was  found  guilty 
of  Adoptianism  and  the  great  Synod  of  Frankfort  (794)  con- 
demned this  heresy.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  these  heresies 
of  an  Eastern  character  made  their  way  into  Western  Eu- 
rope through  Spain,  which,  though  furthest  from  the  East, 
was  always  extremely  susceptible  to  its  influence. 

The  Pelagian  dispute  about  free  will,  which  constantly 
exercised  the  Western  Church,  and  those  concerning  the  Pres- 
ence in  the  Eucharist  may  be  here  passed  over,  as  the  really 
burning  question  at  this  period  was  the  heresy  of  an  oriental 
type  which  probably  combined  old  Gnostic  ideas  with  a  puri- 
tan severity  (Catharism),  a  dislike  of  pomp  and  externals  in 
worship,  and  a  bitter  hostility  to  the  clergy  and  to  the  Church 
as  a  divine  institution.  Such  was  the  teaching  which  grew  up 
and  flourished  in  Southern  Gaul,  almost  overthrew  the  power 
of  the  hierarchy,  and  provoked  terrible  reprisals. 

Feudal  France  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century 
extended  in  the  south  only  to  the  Rhone,  and  did  not  include 
Provence.  Marseilles,  Aries,  Lyons  and  Vienne  lay  within  the 
frontiers  of  the  Empire,  and  the  southern  coast  of  France  ex- 
tended only  from  the  western  mouth  of  the  Rhone  to  the  fron- 
tier of  Spain.  But  the  comparatively  small  district  between 
the  Mediterranean  and  the  Garonne  was  one  of  the  richest  in 
Europe.  Nominally  attached  to  the  French  crown,  it  was  in 
no  sense  French,  being  inhabited  by  a  people  who  regarded 
northern  France  as  a  foreign  land,  spoke  a  different  language, 
and  had  customs  and  institutions  more  akin  to  those  of  the 


1 88  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ancient  Empire  of  Rome  than  to  those  of  feudal  Europe.  It  is 
represented  as  gay  and  pleasant  land,  with  a  luxurious  nobil- 
ity, devoted  to  music  and  poetry,  and  thriving  cities,  attract- 
ing the  commerce  of  the  world,  in  place  of  the  gloomy  baro- 
nial fortresses  and  monasteries  of  the  stern  north.  Naturally  its 
people  were  in  close  touch  with  the  superior  civilization  of 
Mohammedan  Spain;  and  as  there,  the  Jews  were  tolerated 
and  even  respected.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  the 
twelfth  century  southern  France  was  the  scene  of  a  premature 
renascence.  The  ruler,  almost  a  sovereign,  of  this  district  was 
Raymond  VI,  Count  of  Toulouse.  Under  him  were  his  five 
great  feudatories:  (i)  the  Viscount  of  Narbonne;  (2)  the  Vis- 
count of  Beziers;  (3)  the  Count  of  Foix;  (4)  the  Countship  of 
Montpellier  belonging  to  Pedro,  King  of  Arragon;  and  (5)  the 
Countships  of  Quercy  and  Rhodez.  Raymond  VI  was  not  the 
man  to  cope  with  a  crisis  of  exceptional  difficulty,  nor  were 
the  people  of  a  prosperous  and  civilized  province  a  match  for 
what  must  have  appeared  to  them  a  savage  irruption  of  north- 
ern barbarians,  only  too  ready  if  an  excuse  should  offer  to  at- 
tack a  rich  land,  with  exposed  frontiers  and  unwarlike  inhab- 
itants. 

Nowhere  was  the  Church  in  worse  odour  than  in  Langue- 
doc.  There  it  was  despised  by  the  nobility,  many  of  whom  are 
said  to  have  declared  that  they  would  rather  see  a  son  of 
theirs  a  Jew  than  a  priest.  Among  the  people  it  was  detested; 
and  their  religious  instincts  led  them  to  embrace  views  akin, 
partly  to  the  ancient  Paulician  heresy,  and  partly  to  a  prema- 
ture Protestantism.  To  monastic  severity  they  opposed  an 
enthusiasm  for  their  opinions,  as  ardent  as  that  of  St.  Ber- 
nard and  his  Cistercians.  Martyrdom  was  desired  and  sought 
as  eagerly  as  in  the  days  of  the  primitive  Church.  The  heresy 
prevalent  in  this  age  was  twofold.  The  followers  of  Peter 
Waldo  and  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons  were  orthodox  in  belief, 
save  as  regards  the  power  of  the  priesthood,  the  doctrine  of 
the  Mass,  and  the  rejection  of  all  sacraments  save  the  two 
instituted  by  Christ  himself.  Waldo,  before  he  promulgated 
his  extreme  opinions,  even  sought  permission  to  preach  from 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         189 

Pope  Alexander  III.  The  simplicity  of  life  practised  by  him 
and  his  followers  rivalled  and  surpassed  that  of  the  monks. 
No  one  aspersed  his  moral  character,  or  accused  him  of  laxity 
in  his  teaching.  The  sect  was  bitterly  anti-hierarchical  and  as 
such  sufficient  to  incur  the  hostility  of  a  powerful  clergy. 

But  other  teachers  were  distinctly  heretical,  if  not  anti- 
Christian,  in  their  doctrine.  The  Cathari,  or  Albigensians,  as 
they  were  called  from  their  chief  centre,  Albi,  were  accused  of 
opinions  dangerous  to  the  Faith,  which  may  be  summarised 
thus:  Satan  and  his  angels  were  cast  out  of  heaven  and  given 
material  bodies  as  a  punishment.  Satan  is  the  Lord  of  this 
world,  and  the  author  of  the  harsher  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. There  is  no  purgatory  or  hell  but  in  this  world,  where 
we  are  at  home  in  the  body  and  "absent  from  the  Lord" 
(Phil.  1:23).  There  is  no  resurrection,  because  flesh  cannot  in- 
herit the  higher  kingdom.  This  can  only  be  done  by  the  com- 
plete surrender  of  the  lower  nature.  As  Christ,  our  example, 
received  the  Spirit,  so  must  every  "good  man"  become  a  ve- 
hicle for  the  Paraclete.  Water  immersion  is  nothing,  the  only 
baptism  being  that  of  the  Spirit.  Believers  were  the  lower 
grade  of  this  church.  The  highest  were  the  perfect  who  had 
received  the  consolamentum,  a  sort  of  ordination  open  alike  to 
men  and  women.  This  was  often  deferred  to  the  time  of  death; 
but,  if  a  man  or  woman  received  it  earlier,  the  most  rigid  as- 
ceticism and  chastity  were  indispensable;  and  the  perfect  one 
was  regarded  almost  as  an  incarnation  of  Christ.  The  extrav- 
agances of  these  "good  men,"  as  they  called  themselves,  have 
in  later  times  been  manifested  among  the  Russian  sects,  and 
they  were  specially  directed  to  the  discouragement  of  the  prop- 
agation of  the  human  race.  Probably  the  multitude  regarded 
the  Cathari  with  respect  because  of  their  extreme  asceticism, 
and  were  ignorant  of  the  dualistic  Gnosticism  actually  em- 
bodied in  their  teaching.  They  did,  however,  occasionally 
arouse  the  fury  of  the  people,  and  suffered  death  at  the  hands 
of  indignant  mobs. 

In  the  time  of  St.  Bernard  two  teachers  forced  themselves 
into  prominence,   Peter  of  Brueys,   and   Henry  the   Deacon. 


190  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Peter  is  known  from  the  Confutation  of  his  doctrine  by  Peter 
the  Venerable,  Abbot  of  Cluny.  He  was  more  like  the  Icono- 
clasts of  the  eighth  century  than  a  Manichaean.  He  is  accused 
of  denying  infant  baptism,  paying  no  honour  to  the  cross,  re- 
fusing to  allow  prayers  for  the  dead,  compelling  the  clergy  to 
marry  even  by  torture,  neglecting  the  fasts  of  the  church,  etc. 
His  followers  were  known  as  Petrobrusians;  and  their  leader 
was  burned  at  St.  Gilles  in  Languedoc,  by  the  mob  infuriated 
by  his  heretical  doctrines.  Henry  the  Deacon's  career  shows 
how  active  preachers  of  his  type  were.  He  is  found  in  Lau- 
sanne, at  Le  Mans,  in  Gascony,  and  in  Toulouse.  He  was  loud 
in  his  denunciations  of  the  clergy.  Gifted  with  extraordinary 
eloquence,  he  attracted  even  the  priests  whose  sins  he  con- 
demned. At  Le  Mans  he  produced  a  great  sensation  among 
the  people,  especially  the  more  abandoned  portion  of  the  fe- 
male sex.  These  repented,  threw  their  jewels  and  costly  gar- 
ments into  the  flames;  and  by  Henry's  influence  were  married 
as  penitents  to  youths  of  good  position,  who,  like  their  brides, 
assumed  the  coarsest  of  garments.  Hildebert,  Bishop  of  Le 
Mans,  was  almost  abandoned  by  his  flock  when  he  returned 
from  an  absence,  because  of  Henry's  preaching,  but  he  dis- 
missed the  hierarch  with  pitying  contempt.  At  Toulouse 
Henry  met  with  equal  success.  In  vain  did  Eugenius  III  send 
the  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Ostia  to  refute  him.  The  Cardinal  in 
despair  had  to  summon  St.  Bernard,  whose  preaching  is  said 
to  have  restored  the  city  to  peace  and  orthodoxy. 

But  the  evil  in  Languedoc  was  too  deep-seated  to  be  sub- 
dued even  by  the  preaching  of  such  a  saint  as  Bernard  and 
within  fifty  years  of  his  death  the  whole  country  was  notori- 
ously full  of  heretics;  and  the  influence  of  the  Church  seemed 
hopelessly  lost.  The  contagion  was  moreover  spreading  both  in 
France  and  Flanders  and  only  by  drastic  means  could  its  prog- 
ress be  stayed.  What  was  done  opens  a  new  and  terrible 
chapter  in  the  history  of  Christianity. 

No  student  of  this  period  can  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the 
fact  that  hitherto  the  history  of  the  Church  had  been  marked 
by  a  toleration,  truly  remarkable  when  the  deep  and  almost 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         1 91 

fanatical  temper  of  the  time  is  taken  into  account.   Hilde- 
brand,  Peter  Damiani,  William  the  Conqueror,  Bernard  may 
have  been  stern;  but  not  one  of  them  can  be  charged  with  the 
judicial  murder  of  men   because  of  their  religious  opinions. 
Berengar  was  often  forced  to  recant,  but  never  threatened 
with  death;  Abelard's  story  is  pathetic;  but  his  "Calamities" 
might   have    befallen    an   Oxford    latitudinarian   of  our  day, 
though  he  might  not  have  found  an  orthodox  friend  as  loyal 
as  Peter  the  Venerable.  Arnold  of  Brescia,  it  was  true,  was 
burned  or  hanged,  but  for  offences  which  were  certainly  polit- 
ical, and  churchmen  were  to  be  found  deeply  regretting  that 
he  had  not  been  punished  by  exile  and  imprisonment.  Here- 
tics were  undoubtedly  put  to  death  in  various  parts  of  Europe 
in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  sometimes  by  the  civil 
power,  more  frequently  by  riotous  mobs;  but  as  a  rule  the 
bishops  tried  to  rescue  those  condemned  for  heresy  from  the 
peril  of  death.  St.  Augustine's  unfortunate  remark  about  com- 
pelling the  Donatists  to  come  into  the  Church  was  quoted  in 
support  of  proceedings,  which  were   unheard  of  till   he  had 
been  dead  for  more  than  seven  centuries.  The  Church  could 
not  be  called  tolerant  during  that  period;   but,   despite  the 
treatment  of  certain  individuals,  the  clergy  could  not  as  a  rule 
be  described  as  bloodthirsty. 

The  able  and  devoted  Innocent  III  determined  to  cope 
with  the  evil  in  heretical  Languedoc.  No  sooner  had  he  be- 
come Pope  than  he  sent  two  Cistercians  as  Legates  to  enforce 
a  vigorous  suppression  of  heresy  and  to  address  themselves  to 
the  temporal  nobles  in  order  that  they  might  extirpate  the 
Waldenses,  Cathari,  and  Patarines,1  authorising  them  to  seize 
their  property  and  to  put  them  to  death.  But  even  the  nobility, 
and  especially  their  ladies,  were  not  free  from  heresy,  and  the 
next  step  was  to  appoint  two  inquisitors,  Peter,  the  Cistercian 
Abbot  of  Castelnau,  and  another,  with  authority  to  assume  all 
the  powers  hitherto  vested  in  the  bishops.  The  inquisitors 
proceeded  vigorously  and  deposed  and  suspended  bishops  who 

1  The  Patarines  were  the  Cathari  of  Northern  Italy.    They  are  mentioned  in  Chap- 
ter V. 


192  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

showed  any  tendency  to  leniency.  A  third  inquisitor  was  ap- 
pointed, Arnold,  the  Abbot  of  Citeaux,  the  head  of  the  whole 
Cistercian  order.  A  bishop  of  Toulouse  was  next  chosen  who 
would  certainly  not  spare  heresy,  in  the  person  of  Fulk,  once 
a  gay  troubadour,  who  had  retired  to  the  cloister  and  emerged 
as  a  man  possessed  by  a  spirit  of  the  most  unscrupulous  big- 
otry. 

For  eight  years  Peter  of  Castelnau  and  his  associates 
preached,  on  the  whole  ineffectively,  against  the  heretics;  and 
were  joined  by  the  Bishop  of  Osma  and  his  friend,  the  future 
Saint  Dominic.  Disgusted  at  the  pomp  with  which  the  Abbot 
and  his  colleagues  were  journeying  through  the  land,  the 
Spaniards  declared  that  this  was  no  way  to  convert  heretics 
whose  false  humility  must  be  met  by  true  humility,  and  ex- 
horted the  papal  envoys  to  go  without  purse  and  scrip  like 
the  Apostles.  They  dismissed  their  own  horses  and  attendants, 
and  clothed  as  simple  monks  headed  the  mission,  the  legates 
following  their  example.  But  even  this  had  little  effect.  The 
heretics  still  held  their  meetings,  and  the  Count  of  Toulouse 
and  his  colleagues  remained  indifferent.  At  last  in  1207  Peter 
of  Castelnau  excommunicated  Count  Raymond  and  laid  the 
land  under  an  interdict.  In  a  violent  letter  Innocent  con- 
firmed this  sentence. 

The  excommunication  of  the  Count  of  Toulouse  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  murder  of  Peter  of  Castelnau  in  January,  1208, 
for  which,  despite  all  evidence  to  the  contrary,  the  Count  was 
held  to  be  responsible.  Innocent  now  summoned  the  King  of 
France  to  join  a  crusade  against  the  land  guilty  of  heresy  and 
murder.  Philip  Augustus,  powerful  and  ambitious  as  he  was, 
was  not  thought  to  be  likely  to  refuse  to  support  the  cause  of 
the  Church  when  it  squared  with  his  own  ambition  to  make 
himself  really,  and  not  merely  in  name,  master  of  Southern 
France.  Philip,  however,  was  too  politic  to  engage  in  the  enter- 
prise. Nevertheless  a  vast  host  joined  in  the  new  Crusade 
under  the  leadership  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  whose  son  made 
so  great  a  name  in  English  history.  This  Simon  combined  in 
himself  the  fanaticism  of  a  champion  of  the  Christian  faith 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         193 

with  the  rapacity  of  a  feudal  baron.  He  had  joined  in  the 
Fourth  Crusade;  but  had  indignantly  refused  to  be  a  party  to 
the  Venetian  scheme  of  paying  its  expenses  by  besieging  the 
Christian  city  of  Zara.  Thus  far  he  had  shown  himself  a  man 
of  integrity;  but  from  his  conduct  in  the  war  in  Languedoc  his 
fanaticism  seems  to  have  dulled  his  earlier  scruples,  though  he 
at  times  displayed  during  the  campaign  the  virtues  of  a 
Christian  knight. 

Into  the  details  of  this  frightful  war  it  is  not  necessary  to 
enter.  A  vast  army  of  crusaders  assembled.  Beziers  was  the 
first  city  to  fall  and  it  is  said  that  the  war  cry  of  the  crusad- 
ers was,  "Slay  them  all,  God  will  know  his  own."  1  Whether 
this  was  actually  said  is  immaterial,  indiscriminate  massacre 
was  the  spirit  of  the  whole  war;  but  in  the  end  the  crusading 
zeal  even  of  Simon  de  Montfort  was  lost  in  his  determination 
to  carve  out  a  kingdom  for  himself.  Count  Raymond  was  al- 
ternately excommunicated  and  restored  after  performing  hu- 
miliating penances,  but  always  despoiled  more  and  more  of 
his  hereditary  dominions.  Innocent  III,  naturally  a  just  man, 
was  powerless  to  check  the  rapacity  of  the  victorious  nobles  of 
Northern  France.  Like  the  Fourth  Crusade  and  the  capture  of 
Constantinople,  the  Albigensian  war  was  a  horrible  crime 
perpetrated  in  the  name  of  religion;  and  piety  was  once  more 
a  pretext  for  plunder. 

But  the  danger  through  which  the  Church  had  passed  was 
not  forgotten,  and  ushered  in  an  era  of  dogma  enforced  by  re- 
lentless persecution.  The  thirteenth  century,  for  all  its  achieve- 
ments, marks  the  beginning  of  the  decay  of  the  medieval  sys- 
tem. The  fourth  Council  of  the  Lateran  in  121 5  crystallised 
the  doctrine  of  the  Western  Church.  The  council  met  on  St. 
Martin's  day,  November  1  ith,  and  Innocent  after  preaching  from 
the  words,  "With  desire  have  I  desired  to  eat  this  passover  with 

1  These  atrocious  words  are  attributed  to  Arnold,  the  papal  legate.  The  Catholic 
Encyclopedia  quotes Tamlzey  deLarvoque,  Revue  des  Quests  Historiques,  i866,1, 168-191, 
and  says  they  were  never  pronounced  by  him.  They  are  not  quoted  by  the  authori- 
ties on  the  spot.  The  authority  for  them  is  Caesarius  of  Heisterbach,  V.  2,  who  appar- 
ently thinks  they  did  Arnold  credit.  Arnold  in  his  letter  to  Innocent  III  says  terms 
were  offered  to  the  inhabitants  before  the  attack  on  Beziers  was  made. 


194  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

you,"  caused  seventy  canons  prepared  by  himself  to  be  read, 
which  were  accepted  by  the  assembled  prelates.  The  council 
lasted  only  till  the  end  of  the  month. 

The  first  canon  embodied  a  declaration  of  faith.  The  open- 
ing clause  contains  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  adds  that 
all  things  were  created  by  God — even  the  demons,  who  were 
created  good,  fell  into  sin,  and  led  man  astray. 

The  next  part  is  an  exposition  of  the  Catholic  faith  in  the 
Incarnation,  in  the  Resurrection  and  Ascension  of  our  Lord's 
Body  and  Spirit,  in  His  second  coming  as  Judge  when  all  will 
rise  in  their  own  bodies  to  inherit  eternal  punishment  or  eternal 
salvation. 

Thirdly  it  is  affirmed  that  there  is  but  one  universal 
Church  outside  which  no  one  can  be  saved.  In  it  Christ  is  the 
Priest  and  the  Victim.  His  Body  and  Blood  are  truly  in  the 
sacrament  of  the  altar  under  the  species  of  bread  and  wine. 
These  are  transubstantiated  by  divine  power  in  order  that  we 
may  partake  of  His  Body,  as  He  partook  of  our  body.  Only  a 
priest  can  consecrate  this  sacrament,  according  to  the  power 
of  the  keys.  Baptism  must  be  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  and 
is  valid  if  the  invocation  is  right,  whoever  the  minister  may 
be.  Those  who  receive  it  obtain  salvation;  if  they  fall  into  sin, 
they  may  recover  their  innocence  by  true  penitence.  Not  only 
virgins  who  live  lives  of  continence  deserve  salvation,  but  also 
married  persons  if  they  please  God  by  a  pure  faith  and  by 

good  works. 

A  casual  perusal  of  this  canon  would  except  for  the  use  of 
the  expression  tr  an  substantiation  reveal  nothing  more  than  a 
declaration  of  the  faith  of  the  Church,  and  even  in  the  first 
dogmatic  employment  of  a  word,  which  subsequently  became 
as  much  a  matter  of  controversy  as  the  famous  homoousios  of 
the  first  General  Council,  only  gave  expression  to  the  doctrine 
generally  accepted  in  the  Christian  Church.  Yet  underlying 
the  whole  confession  of  faith  it  is  possible  to  recognise  a  de- 
nial of  the  main  heresies  of  the  Albigensians. 

I.  The  demons  as  well  as  the  angels  are  God's  creation  is 
an  explicit  denial  of  dualism. 


LEARNING  AND  HERESY  IN  EARLY  MIDDLE  AGES         195 

2.  The  insistence  on  the  corporal  ascension  refutes  the 
Gnostic  view  of  matter,  on  which  the  heretics  dwelt  so  persist- 
ently. 

3.  The  affirmation  that  the  power  of  consecrating  the 
bread  and  wine  in  the  Sacrament  is  inherent  in  the  Catholic 
priesthood  alone,  precludes  the  use  of  the  words  of  consecra- 
tion being  efficacious,  by  whomsoever  they  are  uttered,  unlike 
the  baptismal  formula  which  is  valid  if  pronounced  by  ordi- 
nary persons. 

4.  The  insistence  on  the  regenerating  power  of  repent- 
ance condemns  any  revival  of  the  ancient  view  that  baptism 
(usually  given  to  adults)  was  the  only  way  of  obtaining  pardon. 

5.  The  declaration  that  married  persons  were  saved  is 
against  the  Marcionite  and  Catharist  doctrine  condemning  all 
profession  of  Christianity  which  did  not  include  the  practice 
of  absolute  continence. 

The  twenty-first  Canon,  making  confession  to  a  priest 
compulsory,  is  so  important  as  to  demand  treatment  in  an- 
other chapter;  for  this  was  the  greatest  weapon  devised 
against  heresy. 

One  word  of  caution,  however,  is  needed  in  conclusion. 
The  spirit  of  the  age  can  never  be  understood  if  it  is  thought 
that  either  the  philosophic  or  social  theories,  or  the  heresies 
described  here,  represent  the  Christianity  usually  accepted. 
The  average  man,  whether  priest  or  layman,  was  untroubled 
by  dogma,  and  his  religion  was  generally  a  mixture  of  genuine 
piety  and  some  of  the  crudest  superstitions  of  primitive  soci- 
ety, of  which  the  story  of  the  Albigensian  crusade  is  witness. 

AUTHORITIES 

The  works  of  Boethius  are  to  be  found  in  the  Loeb  Classical  Library. 
There  is  an  English  translation  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  by  John  Parker. 
For  the  contents  of  the  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  see  J.  Bass  Mullinger,  The 
University  of  Cambridge  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  1535,  p.  25;  also  C.  J.  B. 
Gaskoin's  Alcuin,  pp.  36  ff.;  Paul  Abelson,  The  Seven  Liberal  Arts,  a  Study  in 
Medieval  Culture  (1906);  the  article  "Liberal  Arts"  in  Paul  Monroe's  Cyclo- 
pedia of  Education;  and  P.  R.  Cole,  Later  Roman  Education  in  Ausonius, 
Capella  and  the  Theodosian  Code,  with  Translations  and  Commentary  (1909) ; 
also  Sandys,  A  History  of  Classical  Scholarship. 


196  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

For  the  distinction  between  Plato  and  Aristotle  see  F.  W.  Bussell,  Re- 
ligious Thought  in  the  Middle  Ages,  pp.  509  ff.  This  book  should  be  con- 
stantly referred  to  by  those  who  desire  further  knowledge  of  the  subjects 
treated  in  this  chapter.     If  its  passages  are  intricate,  it  is  a  mine  of  learning. 

Abelard's  works  are  in  Migne,  P.  L.,  178.  The  books  particularly  rec- 
ommended are  Cotter  Morison,  Life  of  St.  Bernard;  McCabe,  Peter  Abelard; 
Adams,  Mount  St.  Michel  and  Chartres;  R.  Lane  Poole,  Illustrations  of  the 
History  of  Medieval  Thought;  H.  O.  Taylor,  Medieval  Mind,  Vol.  II.  For 
the  Paulicians  and  their  successors  consult  F.  C.  Conybeare,  The  Key  of 
Truth.  Bussell,  op.  cit.  Gibbon's  account  of  them  is  in  Ch.  LIV.  J.  B. 
Bury,  History  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire.  The  Albigensian  War  is  de- 
scribed by  Peter  de  Vaux  Cernay  (Migne,  P.  L.,  Vol.  213),  who  accompanied 
his  uncle  to  the  war.  The  material  is  collected  in  Guizot's  Collection  des 
M'emoires.  Refer  to  Milman,  Latin  Christianity,  Bk.  IX,  Ch.  VIII.  Con- 
sult H.  C.  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Vol.  I.  There 
is  a  good  bibliography  in  Lavisse  et  Rambaud,  Hist.  G'en'er.,  Vol.  II,  p.  291. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   MEDIEVAL   CHURCH   AS   A   DISCIPLINARY    INSTITUTION 

Penance  in  early  church  —  Supposed  effect  of  baptism  —  Unpardonable  sins  —  Cal- 
listus  —  All  sins  pardoned  —  Grades  of  penitents  —  Excommunication  —  Pub- 
licity a  cause  of  scandal  —  Severity  of  penance  —  General  repentance  —  The 
Penitentials  —  Auricular  confession  —  The  Lateran  decree  —  Evolution  of  the 
system  —  Church  jurisdiction  —  Canon  Law,  civil  and  criminal  —  Difficulty  of 
enforcing  canonical  penalties  —  Horror  of  heresy  —  The  order  of  preachers  — 
Bishops  responsible  for  extirpating  heresy  —  The  Papal  inquisition  —  Procedure  — 
Inquisition  not  intentionally  cruel  —  Popular  fear  of  heresy  —  Severity  —  Auto- 
da-fes  —  Relapsed  heretics  —  Jews  exempt  from  inquisition  —  Deaths  for  heresy 
not  numerous  —  Surprising  examples  of  mercy. 

In  order  rightly  to  understand  the  coercive  powers  claimed 
and  exercised  by  the  Church  it  is  necessary  briefly  to  recapit- 
ulate the  facts  concerning  its  penitential  discipline  from  the 
earliest  times. 

There  is  much  plausibility  in  the  theory  that  the  ideas 
first  connected  with  baptism  were  influenced  by  the  mystery 
religions  of  the  age,  namely,  that  the  rite  effected  a  complete 
change  of  nature  in  the  recipient.  The  mortal  sinner  emerged 
from  the  water  an  immortal  saint,  possessed  by  a  new  spirit 
or  principle  of  life.  He  had  died  and  been  buried  with  Christ, 
and  he  rose  again  with  his  Lord  in  the  life-giving  rite  which  he 
had  instituted.  In  view  of  the  immediate  coming  of  the  Sa- 
viour at  the  end  of  the  world  this  seemed  a  perfectly  credible 
effect  of  the  sacrament;  and,  in  theory,  all  baptized  Christians 
were  saved  and  all  were  sinless.  Such,  indeed  was  one  aspect  of 
the  teaching  of  St.  Paul,  St.  Peter  and  St.  John  in  the  New 
Testament.  But  these  apostles  were  not  mere  theorists,  but 
men  daily  in  touch  with  practical  life,  and  they  soon  recog- 
nised that  the  baptized  Christian  was  liable  to  relapse  into 
the  sins  which  had  beset  him  in  his  unregenerate  condition. 
To  remedy  this  they  modified  their  views.  Paul  by  subjecting 
the  offender,  for  his  own  good,  to  spiritual  punishment  and 

197 


198  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  pressure  of  public  opinion,1  and  John  by  distinguishing  be- 
tween those  sins  into  which  the  best  of  men  may  fall,  and 
more  heinous  offences  which  make  them  unfit  for  the  society 
of  Christians.  These  in  the  first  Epistle  are  termed  sins  "not 
unto  death,"  and  sins  "unto  death."2  At  the  same  time  there 
was  a  feeling  of  horror  that  a  baptized  man  should  fall  into 
gross  sin,  and  the  very  fact  of  his  having  done  so  indicated 
that  he  was  rejected  by  God,  and  that  he  could  not  be  "re- 
newed unto  repentance."3   From  the  first  the  three  sins  which 
made  restoration  hopeless  were  considered  to  be  apostasy  into 
heathenism,  homicide,  and  fornication.  By  these  the  grace  of 
baptism   was    annihilated.    Such    then   was   the    discipline   of 
primitive  Christianity.  At  baptism  the  candidate  understood 
that  if  he  was  guilty  of  any  of  these  crimes,  he  was  like  the 
soldier  who  deserted  to  the  enemy,  only  the  death  to  which 
he  was   condemned  was   spiritual   and   not   temporal.    But   a 
more  merciful  spirit  was  gradually  being  manifested.  In  the 
second  century  Hermas,  a  baptized  Christian  famous  for  his 
continence,  felt  that  all  was  not  well  with  him,  and  especially 
with  his  family.  In  a  vision  a  special  revelation  was  vouch- 
safed to  him  and  he  was  informed  by  an  angel  that  the  grace 
of  baptism  could  be  renewed  by  one  and  only  one  repentance, 
a  second  penance  was  no  more  possible  than  a  second  bap- 
tism.4  Even   one   chance    after   baptism   was    an    exceptional 
privilege  and  for  more  than  a  generation  this  was  deemed  as 
an  excessive  indulgence  by  the  severer  members  of  the  Church. 
Whether  this  penance  could  free  one  guilty  of  the  three  greater 
sins  is  not  expressly  stated. 

Early  in  the  third  century  the  Church  of  Rome  was  pre- 
sided over  by  Callistus  who,  whatever  may  have  been  his 
faults,  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  farsighted  of  the  early 
popes.  Greatly  to  the  indignation  of  the  rigorists  of  his  age, 
represented  by  Tertullian  and  Hippolytus,  he  recognised  that 

1 1  Cor.  v.  1-9;  see  also  II  Cor.  ii.  5-10;  but  whether  the  same  offender  is  referred 
to  is  an  open  question. 

2 1  John  v.  16-17.  3  Heb.  vi.  4-6. 

4  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  iv.  3. 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     1 99 

the  sins  of  the  flesh,  even  if  committed  after  baptism,  could  be 
sincerely  repented  of,  and  he  issued  an  "edict"  proclaiming 
that  adulterers  and  fornicators  might  be  allowed  the  benefit  of 
one  regeneration  by  penance.1  Still,  however,  the  apostate  re- 
mained forever  excluded  from  the  pale  of  the  Church,  possibly 
on  account  of  the  offence,  being  rare,  possibly  also  to  the  fact 
that  many  who  denied  the  faith  had  no  desire  for  readmission 
to  the  community,2  and  it  was  not  till  the  Decian  persecution 
in  A.D.  250  that  these  cases  demanded  serious  consideration. 
Owing  to  the  influence  of  the  confessors  and  martyrs,  Cyprian 
of  Carthage  and  Cornelius  of  Rome  gave  them  the  chance  of 
the  one  penance  and  established  the  rule  that  no  sin,  however 
heinous,  was  beyond  the  power  of  loosing  committed  by  the 
Lord  to  his  Apostles.  One  result  of  this  leniency  was  the  seri- 
ous and  persistent  schism  of  Novatian,  who  absolutely  denied 
the  right  of  the  Church  to  readmit  to  communion  those  who 
proved  faithless  to  their  Lord  in  times  of  trial. 

Before  the  Peace  of  the  Church  therefore  penance  was  re- 
garded as  a  surprisingly  benevolent  concession  to  human 
frailty  in  giving  a  second  chance  to  baptized  persons  who  had 
defiled  the  white  robe  by  grave  sin. 

By  the  middle  of  the  third  century  a  definite  penitential 
discipline  seems  to  have  been  evolved  and  is  found  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  the  successful  missionary 
bishop  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia.  By  this  time  the  Christians 
had  church  buildings  of  their  own  which  enabled  them  to 
give  a  dramatic  significance  to  their  penitential  ceremonial. 

The  great  Christian  service  was  the  Eucharistic  offering;  and 
this  was  divided  already  into  two  parts,  (1)  the  public  prayers, 
and  (2)  instruction  and  the  consecration  and  participation  of 
the  Elements.  The  one  public,  the  other  confined  to  baptized 
persons  in  full  communion  with  the  Church.  A  grave  sinner 
was  utterly  thrust  out  of  the  assembly  and  might  not  enter 
the  sacred  edifice.  He  had  to  remain  in  the  open  air  and  with 

1Tertullian,  De  Pudicitia,  Introd. 

2  Pliny  in  his  letter  to  Trajan  (x.  96)  says  that  some  of  those  he  had  examined  had 
left  the  Church  years  before. 


200  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tears  and  groans  beseech  the  faithful  to  intercede  for  him 
to  God,  and  the  bishop  that  he  might  once  more  cross  the 
threshold  of  the  church.  It  was  only  by  gradual  stages  that 
the  penitent  won  the  full  communion  which  was  implied  in 
the  participation  in  the  Eucharist.  Sometimes  it  took  years 
before  he  was  even  admitted  to  the  narthex  or  porch  where  he 
stood  and  heard  the  preliminary  service.  The  next  stage  found 
him  within  the  nave  prostrate  on  the  ground  whilst  the  con- 
gregation stood  joining  in  the  prayers.  He  was  then  promoted 
to  the  condition  of  a  "bystander"  and  was  allowed  to  remain 
after  the  catechumens  and  other  penitents  had  left  the 
church,  but  was  not  allowed  to  partake  of  the  holy  mysteries. 
Finally  he  became  a  full  member  of  the  Church  and  com- 
municated with  the  faithful. 

This  elaborately  graded  system  of  penance  was  peculiar  to 
the  East,  but  wherever  public  acts  of  contrition  were  per- 
formed there  was  exclusion  from  the  ranks  of  the  faithful  and 
the  contrite  sinner  was  expected  to  show  his  sorrow  by  sup- 
plication for  pardon,  by  wearing  sordid  garments  and  fasting 
and  prayer.  His  very  penalty  was  regarded  as  a  privilege  by 
which  he  was  restored  to  those  blessings  which  he  had  justly 
forfeited.  The  minister  of  penance  was  generally  the  bishop, 
though  later,  especially  in  Rome  and  Constantinople,  a  priest 
was  appointed  to  look  after  the  candidates  for  absolution.  But 
the  sentence  by  which  the  sinner  was  excluded  from  the 
Church  was  pronounced  by  the  bishop,  who  remitted  the  pen- 
alty by  the  imposition  of  his  hands. 

Such  a  system  as  that  of  ancient  penitential  discipline  pre- 
supposed that  the  sins  thus  atoned  for  were  notorious  and 
scandalous,  and  that  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  especially 
the  bishops,  were  in  charge  of  comparatively  small  communi- 
ties. There  were,  however,  other  factors  which  appear  to  have 
attracted  little  attention  before  they  forced  themselves  into 

notice. 

Of  the  three  great  crimes,  Apostacy  was  a  public  act.  Mur- 
der was  naturally  not  frequent  and  generally  notorious  and 
sins  of  impurity  alone  could  be  possibly  concealed.  But  these, 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     201 

perhaps  more  than  any  other,  troubled  an  awakened  conscience. 
Nor  was  the  Eucharist  ever  regarded  by  the  sinner  as  a  rem- 
edy, but  rather  as  a  participation  with  Christ,  fraught  with 
great  danger  to  those  who  approached  the  Sacred  Mysteries 
unworthily.  Many  sinners  felt  themselves  ipso  facto  excom- 
municated and  dare  not  return  to  communion  till  they  had 
cleansed  themselves  from  guilt.  These  made  confession  to  a 
priest — a  special  official  was  appointed  in  the  Church  of  Con- 
stantinople— and  voluntarily  entered  the  ranks  of  the  peni- 
tent, submitting  to  the  severe  penalties  imposed  by  the 
Church  in  order  to  win  the  coveted  purification  of  the  one 
penance.  But  this  was  often  the  cause  of  scandal,  as  the  pres- 
ence of  a  contrite  person  in  the  ranks  of  penitents  caused  not 
little  surmise  as  to  the  nature  of  his  sin;  and  at  Constantino- 
ple, owing  to  a  lady's  confession  that  she  had  been  seduced  by 
a  deacon  of  the  church,  it  was  considered  advisable  to  abolish 
the  office  of  penitentiary  presbyter.  The  severity  of  the  pen- 
ances deterred  sinners  from  confessing  their  guilt;  for  a  candi- 
date for  forgiveness  had  to  practise  such  austerities  as  made 
ordinary  life  impossible.  With  his  hair  garment,  his  severe 
fasts,  enduring  for  years,  his  constant  presence  at  the  services, 
and  his  compulsory  abstinence  from  all  domestic  joy,  his  con- 
dition was  practically  that  of  an  ascetic.  Nor  did  Pope  Leo 
the  Great  (440-461)  allow  the  penitent,  after  he  had  obtained 
his  hard  won  pardon  to  join,  relax  his  discipline.  For  the  rest 
of  his  life  he  was  forbidden  to  cohabit  with  his  wife,  to  serve 
in  the  army,  or  to  practise  in  the  law  court.  By  this  time,  how- 
ever, the  church  had  become  more  merciful  than  in  early  days, 
and  no  man  who  sought  reconciliation  at  his  death  was  re- 
fused. But  death-bed  penance  was  rightly  deemed  unsatisfac- 
tory, especially  when  the  sinner  had  evidently  hoped  to  avoid 
the  inconvenience  of  a  life  of  penitential  sorrow.  Conse- 
quently in  many  places,  and  notably  in  Gaul,  it  became  a 
custom  to  institute  general  instead  of  personal  penances,  and 
at  the  beginning  of  Lent  the  whole  congregation  was  recognised 
as  sinful  and  needing  reconciliation.  Thus  Ash  Wednesday 
assumed  importance  as  a  day  of  universal  repentance. 


202  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  Britain  first  with  the  Celtic  monks,  who  were  very  ac- 
tive in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  on  the  Continent,  and 
later  with  the  Roman  missionaries  a  scheme  of  prescribed  pen- 
alties were  embodied  in  Penitentials.  These  were  originally  in- 
tended for  the  monastic  disciples  of  the  Celtic  abbots,  part  of 
whose  necessary  discipline  was  to  confess  their  sins;  but  the 
laity  also  sought  the  consolation  of  unburthening  their  con- 
sciences to  the  priest  and  private  confession  became  more  and 
more  prevalent  throughout  the  Christian  world,  which  gradu- 
ally tended  to  adopt  the  British  practice  of  exacting  no  pub- 
lic penance  and  reconciliation  of  the  penitent. 

Thus  the  doctrine  of  penance  had  undergone  considerable 
modification  in  the  course  of  ages.  All  acknowledged  that  the 
church  had  the  power  to  bind  and  loose  given  to  Peter  and  to 
the  Apostles  by  Christ  himself,  but  at  first  it  was  felt  that  this 
must  not  be  used  towards  baptized  persons  guilty  of  the 
gravest  sins.  Then  one  penance  was  allowed,  next  death-bed 
reconciliation  was  never  refused;  a  discipline  was  also  estab- 
lished, which  proved  unworkable  and  a  cause  of  offence.  This 
resulted  in  the  gradual  disuse  of  public  penance,  and  the  tacit 
abandonment  of  the  possibility  of  but  one  post-baptismal  re- 
pentance. On  the  contrary  people  were  exhorted  to  come  fre- 
quently to  the  priest  in  order  to  tell  their  sins  and  receive  ad- 
vice, healing  discipline  and  pardon.  It  remained  only  to  regu- 
late this  system.  By  this  time,  it  must  be  remembered,  the 
Mass  was  usually  attended  by  non-communicants  and  the 
laity  partook  of  the  mysteries  at  rare  intervals  and  prepared 
for  doing  so  by  confession.  Thus  fortified  by  an  assurance  that 
God  had  pardoned  them,  they  could  approach  the  altar. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council  in  121 5 
that  confession  was  organized,  regulated  and  made  obligatory  on 
every  believer.  The  decree  has  been  slightly  modified  in  so  far  as 
it  is  no  longer  obligatory  to  confess  only  to  the  parish  priest  and 
that  Christian  burial  is  no  longer  denied  to  those  who  disobey. 

Its  provisions  are: 

Every  member  of  the  Church  after  attaining  years  of  dis- 
cretion is  to  confess  to  his  own  priest  at  least  once  a  year.  He 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A   DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION      203 

is  to  fulfil  the  penance  imposed  on  him  to  the  best  of  his  abil- 
ity and  to  communicate  at  least  at  Easter,  unless  advised  to 
the  contrary  by  the  priest.  The  penalty  for  disobedience  is 
excommunication  and  refusal  of  Christian  burial.  If  anyone 
wishes  to  confess  to  an  outside  priest  his  confession  is  invalid 
unless  the  parish  priest  has  given  leave.  Under  no  circum- 
stances may  the  secrets  of  the  confessional  be  disclosed;  a 
priest  guilty  of  this  is  to  be  thrust  into  a  monastery  to  do  per- 
petual penance  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Thus  was  evolved  the  Roman  confessional,  with  all  its  tre- 
mendous power  for  good  and  evil,  with  the  priest  acting  as 
judge  of  the  penitent  and  the  physician  of  his  soul.  Penitence, 
first  a  privilege,  had  in  process  of  time  come  to  be  regarded  as 
a  duty.  Originally  a  voluntary  act,  for  no  man  needed  to  sub- 
mit to  it  unless  he  really  desired  to  return  to  the  fold,  it  was 
made  a  necessary  discipline.  In  like  manner  confession  of  sin, 
once  almost  purely  informal,  was  insisted  upon  as  a  duty  in- 
cumbent upon  every  Christian  when  he  or  she  came  to  years 
of  discretion;  and  pardon,  which  had  been  granted  but  once 
and  was  frequently  given  only  on  the  deathbed,  was  bestowed 
at  intervals  throughout  a  lifetime.  The  ancient  discipline  of 
severity  with  all  its  publicity  had  been  replaced  by  a  system 
of  private  penance,  but  terrible  indeed  were  the  consequences 
to  those  who  neglected  the  invitation  of  the  Church  when  con- 
fession became  a  duty  for  all.  But  the  coercive  powers  of  the 
Church  were  public  as  well  as  private,  and  it  is  now  desirable 
to  give  a  sketch  of  its  jurisdiction  and  the  so-called  Courts 
Christian. 

From  the  very  earliest  times  the  Christian  Churches  had 
set  up  courts  of  their  own.  St.  Paul  had  recommended  the 
Corinthians  to  do  this,  rather  than  to  go  to  law  with  one 
another  before  unbelieving  judges.  Perhaps  even  our  Lord 
had  the  same  object  in  view,  when  he  advised  his  disciples,  if 
they  had  a  grievance  against  a  brother  to  tell  it  "to  the 
church."  !  At  a  very  early  date  the  Christian   bishop  acted 

*I  Cor.  vi.  4;  Matt,  xviii.   15-17.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  words  of  our  Lord 
can  be  so  interpreted.  They  hardly  seem  to  be  a  genuine  saying  of  His. 


204  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

as  the  judge  in  the  community.  With  the  Peace  of  the 
Church  his  judicial  position  was  increasingly  recognised  by 
the  Roman  law.  In  Visigothic  Spain  and  England  he  was 
an  assessor  with  the  civil  judges,  but  this  was  in  accordance 
with  national,  not  Roman,  custom.  In  the  West  the  Metro- 
politan claimed  a  superior  jurisdiction,  but  this  was  not  al- 
ways allowed,  the  bishops  being  generally  the  supreme  tri- 
bunal in  the  diocese.  As  the  work  increased  the  bishop  de- 
puted officials  to  hear  and  decide  causes,  and  the  custom  arose 
in  many  places  of  giving  the  archdeacon  a  separate  tribunal  of 
his  own.  But  in  process  of  time  the  final  appeal  lay  with  the 
Pope,  and  Rome  became  the  central  point  in  the  Christian 
system.  Thus  a  vast  system  of  law  courts  and  procedure  grew 
up,  and  the  Church  administered  affairs  on  principles  far  more 
scientific  than  the  lay  courts,  with  their  crude  ideas  of  decid- 
ing civil  or  criminal  cases. 

The  law  of  these  ecclesiastical  courts — "Courts  Christian" 
as  they  were  termed — was  the  Canon  Law  of  the  Church. 
Ever  since  the  fifth  century  there  had  been  collections  of  the 
Canons  of  different  councils  and  the  decretals  of  popes.  These 
formed  an  immense  Corpus  Juris  which  was  reduced  to  shape 
by  Gratian,  a  teacher  at  Bologna,  in  his  Decretum  about  A.D. 
1 148.  In  the  East  the  ecclesiastical  law  was  quite  as  elaborate 
and  complicated  as  in  the  West  and  was  embodied  in  what  was 
called  the  nomocanon. 

The  Canon  Law  dealt  with  a  wide  range  of  subjects  which 
for  the  present  purpose  may  be  divided  into  Civil  and  Crim- 
inal. The  Civil  Law  of  the  church  dealt  with  questions  of 
property,  the  fabrics  and  ornaments  of  churches,  the  dues  of 
the  clergy,  tithes,  offerings,  etc.,  marriage,  testamentary  dis- 
position of  property — mostly  personal,  as  realty  came  under 
feudal  law:  even  contracts  were  a  matter  for  the  church  courts 
as  the  breach  of  certain  agreements  involved  the  sin  of  per- 
jury. Then  the  Courts  Christian  claimed  as  coming  before 
them  cases  in  which  the  clergy  were  involved  as  plaintiffs; 
and  this  frequently  brought  about  a  conflict  with  the  lay 
courts.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say 

/ 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     205 

that  law  occupied  at  least  as  much  of  the  time  of  the  clergy  as 
their  religious  duties;  for  the  administration  of  all  the  law, 
civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  was  long  in  their  hands.  In  fact  the 
Canon  Law  was  fully  as  important  as  the  law  of  the  State.  To 
this  day  the  degree  of  LL.D.,  Doctor  of  Laws,  really  means 
one  who  has  studied  Canon  and  Civil  Laws,  as  opposed  to  the 
D.C.L.,  Doctor  in  Civil  Law. 

But  the  Canon  Law  dealt  with  offences;  and  as  such  had  a 
criminal  side.  At  first,  as  has  been  shewn,  the  only  penalty 
which  the  clergy  could  inflict  was  excommunication.  The  of- 
fender was  driven  out  of  the  community  and  became  no  more 
than  a  heathen  and  a  publican  to  the  Christian  brotherhood. 

If  a  penalty  was  imposed  it  was  by  way  of  penance,  a 
favour  granted  very  sparingly  and  providing  a  means  of  re- 
turning to  the  fold  of  the  Church.  But  penance  was  not  prop- 
erly a  penalty  at  all,  but  it  was  purely  voluntary  and  was 
regarded  rather  as  a  remedy  than  as  a  punishment.  Even  those 
prescribed  in  the  penitentials  were  possibly  originally  part  of 
the  discipline  which  monks  had  accepted  voluntarily.  Gradually 
public  acts  of  penance  for  notorious  sin  were  imposed  on  of- 
fenders; and  this  came  about  when  a  sentence  of  excommuni- 
cation was,  not  sending  an  unworthy  Christian  back  to  a  pagan 
world,  but  involved  all  the  penalty  of  social  ostracism.  Little 
but  death  could  be  looked  for  by  a  person  finally  cut  off  from 
the  Church,  when  all  his  countrymen  as  Christians  were  com- 
pelled under  threat  of  a  like  sentence  to  avoid  him.  Thus  it 
came  to  pass  that  a  man  condemned  to  penance,  heavy  fines, 
or  scourging,  was  really  punished  criminally  by  the  Church. 
Many  offenders  were  sentenced  to  rigorous  confinement  in  a 
monastery. 

But  the  Church  in  many  countries,  notably  England,  had 
no  means  of  exacting  its  penalties.  True  its  decrees  were  en- 
forced by  the  king's  officials;  and  it  was  forbidden  to  inflict 
vindictive  penalties  by  its  own  fundamental  law.  Unlike  the 
sentence  of  a  lay  court  which  condemned  a  man  to  severe 
punishment  in  order  to  mark  the  seriousness  of  his  offence  and 
to  deter  others,  that  of  a  Court  Christian  was  intended  to 


206  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

bring  the  culprit  to  a  better  frame  of  mind,  and  was  profess- 
edly "for  his  soul's  sake." 

The  clergy,  by  which  was  meant  everybody  in  the  remot- 
est degree  connected  with  the  Church,  that  is  in  minor  orders, 
and  included  a  large  proportion  of  the  population,  claimed  to 
be  amenable  only  to  the  Courts  Christian.  This  proved  a 
fruitful  cause  of  dispute  between  the  Church  and  the  Sover- 
eign, on  account  of  the  fact  that  the  Church  by  its  constitu- 
tion provided  no  adequate  penalty  for  the  more  serious  crimes. 
Thus  the  church  courts  could  only  sentence  a  murderer  who 
ought  to  be  hanged  for  the  good  of  society,  to  be  confined  in  a 
monastery  for  the  good  of  his  soul. 

But  until  the  law  books  of  Justinian  began  to  be  intensively 
studied  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  men  trained  in  the  Civil 
Law  began  to  replace  unlearned  judges  in  the  secular  courts, 
the  Canon  Law  was,  not  only  infinitely  more  humane,  but  also 
more  scientific  than  any  system  in  existence,  as  the  clergy  with 
all  their  shortcomings  represented  the  best  civilization  known 
in  the  Western  world. 

The  crime,  however,  which  was  regarded  with  the  greatest 
horror  and  was  believed  to  be  most  dangerous  was  heresy.  All 
men  believed  that  the  future  life  was  infinitely  more  impor- 
tant than  the  transitory  existence  of  men  in  this  world,  as  it 
was  eternal  for  happiness  or  for  an  indescribable  misery.  Out- 
side the  Church  this  misery  was  inevitable;  and  for  the  man 
who  left  the  fold,  the  damnation  of  hell  was  certain.  This  be- 
lief was  universal,  and  the  laity  feared  the  danger  of  dying 
outside  the  Church  intensely.  The  man  therefore  who  tried  to 
seduce  them  beyond  its  pale  and  to  bring  them  into  danger  of 
everlasting  fire  was  infinitely  worse  than  the  murderer  and  de- 
served the  extremest  punishment.  Church  law,  however,  made 
the  better  instructed  clergy  shrink  from  bloodshed,  especially 
as  they  knew  it  to  be  a  fundamental  principle  of  Christianity 
that  persuasion  and  not  force  must  be  applied  to  keep  men  in 
the  Church.  Consequently,  as  has  been  said,  the  heretic  was 
more  in  danger  from  the  fury  of  the  people  than  from  the  big- 
otry of  the  clergy. 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION      207 

The  earliest  heretics  were  as  a  rule  clergy.  In  earliest  time 
the  Gnostics  numbered  laity  and  women  among  their  teach- 
ers, though  Marcion  was  a  presbyter  and  the  son  of  a  bishop. 
But  the  heresiarchs  were  all  members  of  the  clerical  order. 
Arius  was  a  priest,  Nestorius  a  bishop,  Entyches  a  monk.  The 
laity  were  as  a  rule  orthodox  and  earnestly  desired  to  remain 
so.  Nor  can  it  be  wondered  at  that  heresy  flourished  most 
among  those  who  had  not  merely  to  receive  humbly  the 
teaching  of  the  Church,  but  to  consider  all  that  it  implied. 
And  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  most  of  the  heresy  of  the 
early  Middle  Ages,  at  any  rate  in  the  West,  turned  on  deep 
mysteries  unintelligible  to  an  uninstructed  layman  and  was 
debated  in  a  language  which  he  did  not  understand.  In  the 
twelfth  century,  however,  the  clergy  had  mainly,  by  the  abuse 
of  their  privileges,  become  objects  of  deep  distrust,  and  heresy 
became  anti-clerical.  The  wild  and  un-Christian  views  of  the 
Manichaean  Albigenses  owed  their  chief  attraction  to  the 
lives  of  their  exponents,  being  models  of  asceticism,  self-denial 
and  even  decency  compared  with  those  of  the  majority  of  the 
Catholic  clergy.  With  the  close  of  the  Albigensian  War  there- 
fore a  new  regime  was  inaugurated.  It  had  come  to  pass  that 
the  devout  minded  laity  were  arrayed  against  the  clergy;  and 
that  after  trying  the  effect  of  armed  force  to  repress  heresy, 
the  machinery  of  Law  was  devised  to  make  its  recrudescence 
impossible.  With  the  thirteenth  century  the  Inquisition,  in 
the  sense  of  an  organized  enquiry  into  heresy,  came  into  being. 

The  blame  of  the  institution  of  this  awful  tribunal  has 
been  laid  at  the  door  of  one  of  the  best  men  of  Christian  an- 
tiquity. Augustine  of  Hippo  had  in  reference  to  the  Donatists 
used  language,  which  was  employed  to  justify  its  institution 
nearly  eight  hundred  years  after  his  death.  Rightly  to  under- 
stand the  institution,  it  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that 
heresy  was  considered  by  clergy  and  laity  alike  as  the  most 
serious  of  crimes  and  both  were  agreed  that  it  must  be  sup- 
pressed at  all  costs.  This  notion  long  outlived  the  Middle 
Ages;  for  both  in  England  and  Scotland  there  were  executions 
for  it  in  the  seventeenth  century.  In  justice  to  the  Church, 


208  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

moreover,  the  procedure  against  this  offence  was  not  devised 
by  it  but  taken  over  from  the  criminal  procedure  of  the  Ro- 
man Law.  Without  any  attempt  to  palliate  the  horrors  of  the 
system  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  object  of  all  criminal 
law  for  many  generations  was  primarily  to  strike  terror;  and 
the  idea  was  that  it  was  better  that  some  innocent  people 
should  perish  than  one  guilty  person  escape.  In  criminal  cases 
the  accused  was  regarded  as  guilty  till  he  had  proved  his  inno- 
cence, and  hardly  any  advantage  the  law  could  take  was  con- 
sidered unfair.1  Moreover,  the  worse  the  crime  the  less  chance 
the  prisoner  was  given.  In  England,  for  example,  no  man  down 
to  the  eighteenth  century  was  allowed  the  benefit  of  counsel  to 
help  him  if  accused  of  high  treason,  unless  to  speak  on  points  of 
law.  The  record  of  a  state  trial  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors  is 
much  the  same  as  of  one  by  the  Inquisition,  the  tortures  of  which 
were  not  worse  than  those  employed  in  criminal  procedure. 
The  terrible  thing  is  that  the  harsh  law  of  ancient  Rome 
was  put  into  operation  in  defence  of  Christianity;  and  that 
often  what  was  construed  to  be  heresy  was  really  the  enuncia- 
tion of  truths  which  were  fundamental  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Gospel.  With  this  warning  against  doing  injustice  to  a  system 
so  iniquitous  and  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion,  it 
is  proposed  to  describe  the  origin  of  the  Papal  Inquisition. 

The  Dominican  order  of  Friars  Preachers  was  the  result  of 
Dominic's  resolution  to  combat  the  Albigenses  with  its  own 
weapons.  The  object  was  to  outmatch  the  heretics  in  self- 
denial  and  to  refute  them  by  argument.  Thus  Dominic  and  his 
followers  rapidly  became  the  trained  theologians  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church.  Whether  the  saint  encouraged  the  persecution  in 
Languedoc  or  not  is  a  matter  for  careful  scrutiny.  His  admir- 
ers maintained  that  he  was  a  perfect  hammer  of  heretics,  the 
glory  and  stay  of  the  inquisitorial  tribunals.  They  now  con- 

'This  is  perhaps  an  extreme  statement  and  I  quote  a  note  of  Dr.  Munroe  Smith 
which  he  was  kind  enough  to  make.  "I  do  not  think  that  the  inquisitorial  procedure 
was  harsh  or  unfair  until  the  fourth  century  and  not  even  then  except  in  treason  cases. 
Nothing  is  so  cruel  as  fear;  and  Hinschius  thinks  the  inquisitorial  procedure  in  the 
ecclesiastical  courts  gave  fair  protection  to  the  accused."  (See  Hinschius  in  Holtzen- 
dorff,  Realencyclopadie,  3d  ed.  or  any  of  the  older  editions.) 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     209 

tend  that  he  did  his  utmost  to  restrain  the  horrors  of  the  time. 
Assuredly,  however,  he  is  not  personally  responsible  for  the 
Inquisition,  which  was  organized  after  his  death.  He  was,  how- 
ever, in  Toulouse  at  the  time  of  the  murder  of  Peter  of  Cas- 
telnau  in  1208  and  during  the  sack  of  Beziers.  He  met  Simon  de 
Montfort,  in  September,  1209,  and  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  this 
bigoted  crusader.  It  is  to  his  prayers  that  the  striking  victory 
of  Montfort  over  Peter  of  Aragon  at  Muret,  1213,  is  said  to 
have  been  due;  and  the  notorious  persecutor  of  heretics,  Fulk 
of  Toulouse,    encouraged    him    in    organizing    his    Preachers. 
However,  whether  Dominic  approved  of  persecution  or  not, 
he  certainly  was  a  marked  figure  as  a  religious  leader  and  pro- 
moter of  piety.  His  chief  work  in  Gaul  was  the  organization  of 
an  order  of  women  at  Prouille,  into  which  the  Catholic  ladies 
were  attracted;  and  this  became  the  Second  Order,  the  First, 
that  of  Preachers,  being  confirmed  by  Honorius  III,  December  22, 
1216.  Dominic  himself  was  made  Master  of  the  Sacred  Palace, 
or  the  special  theologian  to  assist  the  Pope  in  matters  pertain- 
ing to  doctrine.  The  Order  was  established  in  Rome  and  given 
the  church  of  St.  Sixtus;  and  it  spread  rapidly  throughout 

Europe. 

Up  to  this  time  the  bishops  had  been  made  responsible  for 
the  suppression  of  heresy  in  their  dioceses.  On  the  whole  they 
lacked  the  necessary  qualifications  in  face  of  the  revival  of 
erroneous  opinions  in  the  twelfth  century.  Many  were  en- 
gaged by  secular  duties,  imposed  on  them  by  the  necessity  of 
their  positions  of  princes  ruling  large  territories.  All  were  in- 
evitably occupied  in  administering  large  estates,  and  gather- 
ing the  funds  needed  to  maintain  extensive  retinues.  Many 
had  had  the  training  of  lawyers,  one  may  say,  of  civil  servants. 
Few  were  expert  theologians,  capable  of  dealing  with  fanatics 
so  plausible  and  crafty  as  the  leaders  of  the  Cathari,  or  so 
versed  in  Scripture  as  the  followers  of  Waldo.  Moreover,  they 
were  on  the  whole  tolerant,  and  averse  to  hunting  out  crimi- 
nals who  did  not  disturb  the  peace  of  their  dioceses.  But  in  the 
thirteenth  century  the  temper  of  the  Church  changed.  It  had 
come  to  a  death  struggle,  between  the  Papacy  and  the  Em- 


2IO  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

pire,  as  well  as  between  Orthodoxy  and  Catharism;  and  the 
new  orders  of  the  Friars  had  arisen  as  zealous  champions  of 
the  Church. 

The  first  law  prescribing  the  penalty  of  death  by  burning 
for  heresy  naturally  came  from  a  secular  ruler.  Frederic  II  so 
ordered  it  in  1224,  and  seven  years  later,  in  1231,  he  was  fol- 
lowed by  Pope  Gregory  IX's  decretal  ordering  the  con- 
demned heretics  to  be  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm.  Though 
suspected  of  being  a  free  thinker  and  notoriously  consorting 
with  Mohammedans,  perhaps  on  that  account,  the  Emperor 
was  a  ruthless  persecutor  of  the  Cathari,  Paterines  and  other 
heretics  in  his  Northern  Italian  dominions.  But  there  had  been 
several  executions,  all  more  or  less  irregular,  and  still  heresy 
persisted;  the  fact  being  that  the  diocesan  system  was  not 
adapted  to  the  extermination  of  what  was  deemed  to  be  the 
most  serious  of  crimes. 

To  remedy  this  the  Papal  Inquisition  gradually  took  the 
place  of  the  Episcopal,  but  only  by  slow  degrees  and  after 
much  opposition. 

An  Inquest,  or  Inquisition,  was  held  by  delegates  appointed 
by  the  Pope  to  seek  out  and  try  heretics.  As  a  rule  they  were 
Dominicans,  and  went  on  their  assises  attended  by  their 
police  or  "familiars,"  who  were  often  armed,  for  the  duties  of 
an  inquisitor  were  not  discharged  without  danger.  The  inquis- 
itor was  instructed  to  act  with  the  bishop  but  often  there  was 
much  rivalry  between  the  two  jurisdictions,  which  the  Pope 
had  difficulty  in  adjusting. 

On  the  arrival  of  the  Inquisitors  all  the  inhabitants  were 
assembled  together  and  the  Faith  was  expounded  to  them. 
Then  a  period  of  grace  was  proclaimed,  during  which  people  were 
encouraged  to  make  confession  if  they  were  guilty  of  heresy. 
Those  who  confessed  were  not  harshly  treated  but  fined,  sent 
on  pilgrimages  or  condemned  to  wear  a  cross  for  a  certain 
period.  After  the  period  of  grace  the  inquisitors  began  to 
arrest  suspects.  These  were  exhorted  to  confess  and  in- 
creasing pressure  was  put  upon  them.  They  were  first  told 
that  their  crimes  were  known  and  that  unless  they  confessed 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     211 

they  would  inevitably  be  burned.  If  they  persisted,  the 
confinement  was  made  more  severe;  their  amount  of  food  was 
reduced  and  they  were  left  in  misery  to  reflect  on  their  mis- 
deeds. When  worn  out  they  were  visited  by  "tried  men,"  or 
experts,  skilful  in  extorting  admission  of  heresy.  If  these 
failed  torture  was  employed.  It  might  only  be  used  once,  and 
according  to  the  law  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  needlessly 
cruel,  it  being  expressly  stated  that  no  limb  should  be  injured, 
nor  life  endangered.  It  was  only  by  abuse  that  it  was  any- 
thing like  the  horrible  thing  often  depicted.  Nevertheless  it 
was  often  very  dreadful,  and  by  legal  fictions  it  was  sometimes 
made  to  last  many  days.  Even  witnesses  were  racked.  But  the 
law  was  milder  than  that  of  the  civil  ruler,  though  the  secrecy 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  Inquisition  made  illegal  cruelties  in- 
evitable. 

The  principles  on  which  heretics  were  proceeded  against 
were  those  of  Roman  criminal  law  with  its  three  forms  of  ac- 
tion: accusation,  denunciation,  and  inquisition.  The  accuser 
formally  inscribed  himself  as  responsible  for  the  action  under 
penalty.  The  public  officer  by  denunciation  summoned  the 
court  to  take  action.  In  the  inquisition  the  offender  was  sum- 
moned and  imprisoned  and  the  indictment  was  presented  to 
him,  with  the  proviso  that  further  charges  could  not  be  made 
to  aggravate  his  guilt.  He  was  persuaded  to  confess  and  if  he 
was  not  prepared  to  do  so  the  witnesses  were  examined,  but 
not  in  his  presence.  Care  was,  however,  to  be  taken  that  the 
accusers  should  be  men  of  repute  and  not  inspired  by  personal 
malice.  The  judge,  generally  the  Ordinary  or  Bishop,  was  to 
be  convinced  that  there  was  reasonable  presumption  of  guilt 
before  he  instituted  proceedings.  The  inquisitor,  Bernard  Gui, 
enunciates  that  the  purpose  is  "That  the  rashness  of  the  per- 
verse be  punished  in  such  a  way  as  to  avoid  injuring  innocent 
persons." 

It  is  but  just  to  admit  that  the  papal  legislation  as  a  rule 
was  directed  to  secure,  not  only  justice,  but  a  certain  human- 
ity; and,  as  many  pontiffs  were  trained  lawyers,  they  had  a 
natural  dislike  to  violent  or  illegal  procedure.  Innocent  III, 


212  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  sternest  asserter  of  papal  supremacy,  waged  constant  war 
on  the  superstition  and  absurdity  of  ordeals,  trials  by  combat, 
and  the  ridiculous  procedure  of  a  barbarous  age.  Indeed,  one 
of  the  objects  of  his  legislation  and  that  of  his  successors  in 
the  matter  of  heresy,  was  to  give  the  accused,  if  not  a  fair 
trial,  at  least  some  sort  of  a  trial  before  condemnation.  At 
least  the  setting  up  of  inquisitorial  courts  was  better  than 
mobs  burning  heretics  wholesale  or  crusading  armies  slaying 
them  to  shouts  of  "Slay  on,  God  will  know  his  own."  Bad  as  it 
was,  the  record  of  Bernard  Gui,  who  between  1308  and  1322 
found  six  hundred  and  twenty-six  persons  guilty  of  heresy  and 
burned  forty  of  them,  contrasts  favourably  with  the  slaughter 
which  took  place  before  the  procedure  was  legalised. 

Before  passing  final  judgment  on  the  inquisitorial  process 
it  is  at  least  necessary  to  take  a  hasty  glimpse  of  the  working 
of  the  institution  as  devised  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

In  treating  of  the  legislation  and  procedure  against  crimes, 
which  we  are  inclined  to  pronounce  either  venal  or  purely  im- 
aginary like  heresy  or  witchcraft,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  severity  was  invariably  popular  and  that  the  harsh  legis- 
lation came,  not  from  the  heart  of  cruel  priests,  kings  or  gov- 
ernments, but  in  answer  to  the  demands  of  public  sentiment. 
In  the  records  of  witch-trials  the  people  firmly  believed  that 
they  or  their  friends  had  been  injured  by  supernatural  means 
and  clamoured  for  the  punishment  of  those  responsible  for 
their  sufferings.  It  was  the  same  as  regards  heresy  and  it  has 
been  truly  remarked  of  the  twelfth  century,  "The  people  dis- 
liked what  was  to  them  the  extreme  dilatoriness  of  the  clergy 
in  pursuing  heretics."  1  Heresy  was,  in  addition,  deemed  the 
most  fearful  of  crimes  and  all  rulers,  civil  and  ecclesiastical, 
were  in  cordial  agreement  that  at  all  costs  it  must  be  extir- 
pated, not  only  to  save  their  fellow  creatures  from  the  pains 
of  everlasting  hell,  but  to  maintain  the  very  existence  of  soci- 
ety. However  men  might  deplore  the  degeneracy  of  the  clergy 
of  the  age,  and  denounce  the  abuses  of  their  lives  or  the  venal- 
ity of  the  Roman  Curia,  they  were  unanimous  in  agreement 

1  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Art.  Inquisition,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  28,  col.  2. 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     21 3 

that  the  Catholic  Faith  must  be  preserved  at  all  hazards.  Nor 
were  the  Catharist  sects  against  whom  the  laws  were  mainly 
directed  harmless  enthusiasts  for  a  biblical  religion;  but  often 
under  a  guise  of  conformity  were  promoting  actually  unchris- 
tian beliefs  and  practises.  For  the  spread  of  these  and  other 
revolts  against  the  Church  the  conduct  of  the  clergy  may 
have  been  responsible;  but  none  the  less  the  world  believed 
that  false  doctrines  must  be  suppressed. 

Accordingly  heresy  was  proceeded  against  as  the  greatest 
of  crimes  and  the  accused  given  but  little  chance  of  clearing 
himself.  The  most  practised  lawyers  examined  him  and  twisted 
his  every  word  into  an  admission  of  guilt.  He  was  told  that 
the  evidence  against  him  was  overwhelming;  but  he  was  never 
allowed  to  see  his  accusers  nor  to  know  even  their  names.  No 
one  was  permitted  to  appear  in  his  defence,  and  his  only 
chance  was  to  admit  his  guilt  and  to  accept  the  sentence  of  the 
Church.  The  suspect  was  surrounded  by  spies;  it  was  practi- 
cally tantamount  to  heresy  for  his  nearest  and  dearest  to  con- 
ceal his  guilt  if  they  were  cognisant  of  it.  Even  those  under 
the  legal  age  might  bear  testimony  against  him.  Nor  did  death 
deliver  him  from  the  far-reaching  arm  of  the  Inquisition.  He 
might,  even  after  his  decease,  be  accused  of  heresy;  and  if 
guilty,  his  body  was  exhumed  and  his  children  suffered  the 
confiscation  of  goods  and  the  infamy  they  would  have  been 
liable  to  had  he  been  condemned  alive.  The  inquisitors  them- 
selves obtained  an  authority  which  even  individual  popes 
would  have  been  powerless  to  control.  Only  very  powerful 
states,  like  Venice,  dared  to  exclude  their  tribunals;  and  these 
were  equally  severe  to  heretics,  and  in  some  instances  even 
more  so  than  the  Church.  The  story  of  the  misfortunes  of  the 
Counts  of  Toulouse,  in  and  after  the  Albigensian  crusades,  was 
enough  to  warn  any  temporal  ruler  against  mildness  in  deal- 
ing with  the  enemies  of  the  Faith. 

When  the  accused  had  been  convicted  of  heresy  the  sen- 
tences had  to  be  pronounced  and  to  give  them  more  solemnity 
a  fixed  day  was  appointed  to  conclude  the  business  of  an  in- 
quisitorial tribunal.  Here  there  is  a  curious  mixture  of  the  the- 


214  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ory  of  the  primitive  Church  and  the  practice  of  the  Roman 
Law. 

Theoretically  the  Church  could  not  punish.  Its  sentences 
were  not  penalties  but  fatherly  advice  to  the  sinner  to  submit 
himself  voluntarily  to  penance.  Only  in  extreme  cases  was  a 
heretic  cast  out  of  the  Church.  No  one  in  fact  was  sentenced 
by  the  court  unless  he  had  confessed  and  abjured  his  sin.  Had 
he  failed  to  do  so  he  was  expelled  from  the  Christian  body. 
The  penitent,  therefore,  was  not  sentenced  but  advised  to  be- 
take himself  to  some  monastery  and  undergo  due  penance  or 
to  pay  a  fine  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  wear  a  cross,  or  go 
on  a  pilgrimage.  Some  of  the  sentences  are  apparently  mild, 
some  really  diabolically  severe,  many  entailed  a  life  of  the 
severest  penal  monastic  discipline.  But  over  all  self-accused 
and  convicted  heretics  hung  the  terrible  prospect  that  if  they 
broke  prison,  disregarded  their  penances,  or  in  any  way  re- 
sumed their  errors,  nothing  could  save  them  from  being  treated 
as  relapsed  heretics,  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm  and 
burnt  alive.  Here,  however,  inquisitors  of  the  Church  were  at 
times  more  merciful  than  the  law,  and  interposed  between  the 
secular  arm,  which  was  seldom  unwilling  to  inflict  sentence  of 
death  on  the  wretched  relapsed  heretic.  In  the  treatment 
of  the  relapsed  there  is  evidently  a  survival  of  the  old  belief 
that  penitence  can  only  once  be  given,  and,  after  it  is  abused, 
rejection  by  the  faithful  is  inevitable. 

Another  survival  of  ancient  belief  is  seen  in  the  fact  that 
no  unbaptized  person  was  amenable  to  a  church  court.  A  Jew, 
for  example,  could  never  be  brought  before  the  Inquisition; 
for,  according  to  the  precepts  of  the  Church,  no  one  can  be 
made  a  Christian  save  by  persuasion.  In  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion in  the  fifteenth  century  the  "Jews"  who  suffered  were 
converted  Jews,  who  had  accepted  Christianity  to  escape  ex- 
pulsion from  the  country,  and  had  reverted  to  the  customs  of 
their  ancestors,  the  slightest  sign  of  the  observance  of  which 
was  deemed  a  proof  of  heresy. 

The  Inquisition  was  mainly  confined  to  the  Latin  nations 
of  Southern  Europe.  Among  the  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     21 5 

people  it  had  no  footing  till  a  late  period.  In  England  the 
burning  of  a  deacon,  who  had  apostatised  and  married  a  Jewess 
in  1222,  was  regarded  with  horror;  and  no  law  sanctioned  such 
an  execution  till,  as  late  as  1400  an  anti-clerical  Parliament 
passed  the  Act  De  Heretico  Comburendo  to  check  the  excesses 
of  the  Lollards,  who  were  suspected  of  radical  political  tend- 
encies. Fourteen  years  later  Henry  V  instituted  mixed  tribunals 
to  try  heretics,  instead  of  leaving  the  sentence  wholly  to  the 
bishops. 

As  is  natural,  Protestants  have  been  loud  in  their  condem- 
nation of  the  whole  system  of  the  Inquisition  and  have  dwelt 
upon  its  many  undoubted  abominations.  Roman  Catholics  have, 
on  the  contrary,  pointed  to  its  constitution  and  have  endeav- 
oured to  show  that  as  a  legal  tribunal  it  was  rather  more  than 
less  merciful  than  others  of  former  days.  The  number  of  deaths 
it  inflicted  has  certainly  been  greatly  exaggerated;  and  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  in  which  it  originated,  it  must  have  caused 
less  misery  than  when  it  was  employed  against  the  Reformers 
in  the  sixteenth.  Assuredly,  then,  neither  Catholics  nor  Pro- 
testants can  bear  the  blame  of  being  the  only  persecutors  nor 
can  cruelties  in  the  name  of  religion  be  said  to  have  been 
worse  than  those  more  recently  perpetrated  for  or  against 
vested  interests.  The  whole  question  can  now  be  subjected  to 
an  impartial  discussion;  and  only  those  who  still  persist  in 
maintaining  that  intolerance  of  opinion  ought  to  be  practised 
in  order  to  restrain  the  right  of  men  and  women  to  think  for 
themselves,  are  to  be  condemned. 

One  noteworthy  fact,  however,  remains  to  be  noticed.  The 
Inquisition  was  the  outcome  of  the  old  theory  of  penance 
which  after  repeated  modifications  throughout  the  centuries  was 
evolved  into  the  institution  which  has  been  described  in  this 
chapter. 

Severe  and  terrible,  however,  as  the  Church  was  towards 
the  heretic,  towards  other  criminals  great  mercy  was  some- 
times shown.  The  two  murders  which  thrilled  Christendom  in 
their  day  was  the  slaying  of  Thomas  Becket  at  the  altar  of  his 
metropolitan  Cathedral  at  Canterbury  in  11 70  and  the  assas- 


2l6  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

sination  of  the  Dominican  Inquisitor  and  saint  Peter  Martyr 
in  a  wood  near  Milan  in  1252.  It  was  in  the  interest  of  the 
Church  that  the  crime  killing  Becket  should  be  branded  as 
one  of  the  most  atrocious  in  history.  The  Preachers  regarded 
Peter  as  the  glory  of  the  Dominican  order.  Yet  the  four  knights 
who  slew  Becket  were  allowed  to  live,  not  in  misery  and  ob- 
scurity, but  in  high  positions  of  honour;  the  fact  being  that  the 
law  which  shielded  the  clerk  guilty  of  murder  from  the  secular 
punishment  of  death,  also  protected  the  murderer  of  a  clergyman 
from  the  vengeance  of  the  law,  because  his  was  an  ecclesiastical 
offence.  It  is  even  stranger  that  the  priest  who  killed  Peter 
Martyr  was  allowed  to  end  his  days  in  a  Dominican  monastery, 
where  his  penitence  won  him  in  popular  estimation  spiritual 
promotion,  second  only  to  that  gained  by  his  victim;  and  he 
ranks,  though  not  officially,  among  the  beatified.  It  is  these 
examples  which  reveal  the  strange  working  of  the  mind  of  medi- 
eval churchmen.1 

The  Inquisition  was  the  weapon  devised  to  beat  down 
heresy,  but  a  little  before  its  institution  a  powerful  antidote 
to  rebellion  was  perfected  in  the  form  of  the  interdict.  The 

^here  is  a  most  interesting  letter  to  the  Bishops  of  Winchester,  Norwich,  and  Ely 
preserved  in  Hook's  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  (Anglo-Norman  period),  Vol.  II,  p. 
516  ff.,  by  Richard  (1174-1184),  the  successor  of  Becket.  It  begins  thus:  "In  the 
Church  of  England  a  custom  has  arisen,  baneful  to  all,  and  in  every  way  to  be  repre- 
hended ....  If  a  Jew  or  a  layman  of  the  lowest  grade  be  killed,  the  murderer  is 
immediately  sentenced  to  the  punishment  of  death;  whereas  if  any  one  has  killed  a 
priest  or  clergyman  of  the  lower  or  higher  order,  the  Church,  contented  (contenta) 
with  excommunication  only,  or,  I  should  rather  say  contemned  (coniempta)  through  it, 
refuses  the  aid  of  a  carnal  weapon."  The  archbishop  mentioned  a  particularly 
atrocious  instance  of  a  certain  William  Frechet  and  his  wife,  who  avowed  having 
killed  a  priest  at  Winchester,  and  went  to  Rome  to  get  absolution. 

The  murderers  of  Becket  did  penance,  and  were  all  considerable  men  after  the 
crime.  Tradition,  of  course,  says  they  all  perished  miserably.  But  the  facts  are  that  all 
four  prospered.  Hugh  de  Moreville  was  a  wealthy  gentleman  in  the  North  of  England 
in  the  reign  of  King  John;  Reginald  Fitzurse  is  said  to  have  fled  to  Ireland  and  have  taken 
the  Irish  equivalent  of  his  Norman  name,  being  known  as  MacMahon  (son  of  the 
Bear);  William  de  Tracy  founded  a  famous  family  still  represented  in  England.  Stanley, 
Historical  Memorials  of  Canterbury,  II  (The  Murder  of  Becket).  The  murderer  of  St. 
Peter  Martyr,  Pietro  Balsamo,.  known  as  Catino,  finally  repented;  and  he  is  represented 
among  the  Dominican  saints  as  the  "  blessed  Acerinus."  (Lea,  Hist.  Inquisit.) 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  AS  A  DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION     217 

word  interdicere  means  to  forbid;  but  interdictum  was  used  in 
a  legal  sense,  and  meant  the  interlocutory  edict  of  the  praetor 
forbidding  something  to  be  done  till  the  case  in  dispute  had 
been  finally  decided.  In  the  law  in  Scotland  the  word  interdict 
is  the  equivalent  to  the  English  injunction.  The  word  in  its 
ecclesiastical  sense  does  not  occur  before  the  eleventh  century. 
The  thing,  however,  is  older;  and  it  is  an  open  question  when 
the  first  "interdict"  in  its  more  modern  sense  was  issued.  It 
was  practically  a  general  excommunication,  a  curse  imposed 
on  a  place  and  its  inhabitants.  Excommunication  was  terri- 
ble enough  in  its  consequence.  Even  emperors  and  kings  were 
crushed  under  its  weight.  The  faithful  were  warned  under  the 
most  dreadful  penalties  to  avoid  the  person  under  the  ban  of  the 
Church.  It  was  at  the  risk  of  their  eternal  salvation  that  they 
so  much  as  ate  with  him.  To  show  him  any  kindness  was  to 
participate  in  his  sin,  and  perhaps  to  share  in  the  penalty. 
But  at  least  the  excommunication  was  intended  for  a  guilty 
individual,  and  it  was  hoped  that  its  effect  would  be  to  bring  him 
to  a  sense  of  his  sin.  An  interdict  could  plead  no  such  justifica- 
tion. It  smote  the  innocent  as  well  as  the  sinners  and  was  at 
times  intended  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  an  offending  prince 
by  forcing  his  suffering  subjects  to  demand  that  the  ban,  which 
his  conduct  towards  the  Church  had  brought  down  upon  them, 
should  be  removed. 

The  interdict  is  still  used  and  as  lately  as  1909  Pope  Pius 
imposed  one  on  a  north  Italian  city  for  fifteen  days  as  a  punish- 
ment. But  it  is  long  since  it  has  been  used  to  bring  a  recalcitrant 
ruler  to  submit  to  the  Church.  It  is  said  that  these  "local" 
interdicts,  which  punished  cities  or  districts  by  withholding  the 
sacraments  of  the  Church,  date  from  the  days  of  St.  Basil;  but 
the  great  age  of  interdicts  was  the  age  of  Innocent  III  (1198- 
1216),  who  used  them  frequently  and  remorselessly.  No  less 
than  fifty-seven  belong  to  his  reign.  Interdicts  could  be  pro- 
nounced over  places  by  the  bishop;  but  his  ban  was  confined  to 
his  own  diocese.  The  Pope  had  the  power  to  "interdict" 
whole  countries,  and  to  secure  the  observance  of  his  decrees. 
The  most  famous  interdicts  were  pronounced  against  Scotland 


21 8  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

by  Alexander  III  in  1181,  against  the  City  of  Rome  by  his 
predecessor  Hadrian  IV,  against  France  in  1200,  because  King 
Philip  Augustus  had  repudiated  his  wife,  against  England,  for 
the  contumacy  of  John  for  not  receiving  Stephen  Langton  as 
Archbishop,  against  Jerusalem  because  of  the  presence  of  the 
rebellious  and  excommunicated  Emperor  Frederic  II.  Thus  no 
prince  was  too  powerful,  no  place  too  holy  to  escape  from  the 
pressure  of  a  papal  interdict. 

In  1200  all  churches  in  the  dominions  of  Philip  Augustus 
were  ordered  to  be  closed,  the  Mass  was  not  to  be  celebrated; 
but  on  Fridays  the  host  was  to  be  consecrated  by  a  priest 
and  a  single  acolyte,  and  no  one  might  receive  the  sacrament 
except  the  dying.  No  layman  might  enter  a  church,  he  could 
not  even  hear  the  priest  repeat  the  offices.  Even  in  Passion 
Week  the  Eucharist  might  not  be  celebrated.  Only  on  the  very 
greatest  festivals  was  Mass  allowed.  Nor  might  the  women  be 
"churched"  after  childbirth,  or  the  dying  receive  Extreme 
Unction.  But  more  terrible  than  anything  else,  the  burial  of 
the  dead  was  forbidden,  the  churchyards  were  closed,  and  the 
laity  were  warned  that  it  was  a  great  sin  to  bury  in  unconse- 
crated  ground.  While  the  interdict  lasted  baptism  was  with- 
held from  the  children,  and  unbaptised  infants  allowed  to  go 
to  endless  punishment.  In  the  interdict  in  the  reign  of  John 
in  England  corpses,  even  those  of  bishops,  were  unburied,  till 
at  last  the  Bishop  of  London  was  induced  to  issue  a  bull  which 
permitted  the  citizens  to  be  buried  in  waste  land  belonging  to 
St.  Bartholomew's  Priory.  Sometimes  interdicts  were  launched 
for  the  purpose  of  forcing  peoples  to  pay  real  or  imaginary  dues 
to  the  Church,  and  the  island  of  Cyprus  was  threatened  once 
if  the  arrears  of  its  tithes  were  not  forthcoming.  It  is  true  that 
all  the  clergy  of  a  kingdom  seldom  agreed  to  observe  an  inter- 
dict; (that  of  1 208-121 2  was  only  partially  enforced  in  England); 
but,  as  long  as  the  Popes  were  powerful  enough  to  use  this 
weapon  in  a  superstitious  age,  they  had  the  princes  of  the 
West  under  their  control  by  working  on  the  terrors  of  their 
unfortunate  subjects. 


MEDIEVAL   CHURCH  AS  A   DISCIPLINARY  INSTITUTION      219 

AUTHORITIES 

For  the  first  part  of  this  chapter  I  have  been  dependent  on  the  two 
volumes  of  O.  D.  Watkins,  A  History  of  Penance,  a  work  of  great  learning 
and  research  with  invaluable  extracts  from  all  the  documents  bearing  on  the 
subject.  For  the  rest  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  Henry  Charles  Lea's  History 
of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Middle  Ages,  3  vols.  I  have  also  made  extensive 
use  of  the  articles  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  and  of  F  .W.  Maitland's 
Canon  Law  in  England.  A  layman  writing  on  law  is  beset  by  pitfalls;  and, 
if  I  have  avoided  any  of  these,  it  is  due  to  Professor  Munroe  Smith,  of 
Columbia  University,  New  York,  who  kindly  read  my  manuscript. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    FRIARS  —  THE    SCHOOLMEN  —  THE  UNIVERSITIES 

Francis  of  Assisi  —  Popularity  of  the  movement  —  Utilised  by  the  Church  —  Danger 
of  Franciscanism  —  Innocent  III  and  Francis  —  Cardinal  Ugolino,  later  Gregory 
IX  —  Brother  Elias  —  The  Church  at  Assisi  —  Absolute  rule  of  poverty  —  Brother 
Leo's  Sacrum  Commercium  —  The  Everlasting  Gospel  —  Lives  of  St.  Francis  — 
Party  of  the  strict  observance  —  The  Legend  of  the  Three  Companions  —  Bona- 
ventura's  Life  of  Francis  —  The  Fioretti  —  The  Dominicans  —  Tertiaries  — 
Monks  and  Friars  —  The  new  learning  of  the  13th  century  —  Aristotle  —  Contrast 
between  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  —  The  Summce  —  Alexander  of  Hales  — 
Bonaventura  —  Philosophy  of  Bonaventure  —  Albert  the  Great  and  Thomas 
Aquinas  —  Duns  Scotus  —  Friar  Bacon  —  Study  of  Law  —  Gratian's  Decre- 
tum  —  Medicine  —  Scholasticism  and  the  classics  —  Universities  —  Monastic 
schools  —  Bologna  —  Paris. 

The  thirteenth  century  was  an  age  of  great  ideas.  In  it 
medieval  civilization  found  its  best  expression;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  sowed  the  seed  of  its  own  decay.  It  was  the  era  of  new 
ideals  of  life,  a  new  philosophy,  and  in  a  sense  of  the  dawn  of 
modern  Europe.  Within  its  first  decade  a  movement  began, 
destined  to  revolutionise  men's  views  of  religion  and  to  place 
in  the  hands  of  the  Church  a  formidable  force  for  its  contest 
with  the  rulers  of  the  world. 

The  appearance  of  St.  Francis  is  one  of  the  most  extraor- 
dinary events  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  resembles  in  some  re- 
spects the  more  evangelical  of  the  heretics  of  the  period,  notably 
Peter  Waldo.  The  son  of  a  wealthy  merchant,  he  was  indul- 
gently brought  up  and  when  young  he  was  conspicuous  as  a 
man  of  pleasure.  Suddenly  he  was  converted  and  sold  his 
father's  property  to  give  the  money  to  the  poor.  On  being  re- 
jected by  his  father  he  offered  himself  naked  to  the  bishop  of 
Assisi,  who  gave  him  a  coarse  robe  and  allowed  him  to  dedicate 
himself  to  God.  Fired  by  the  example  of  Christ,  who  had  no- 
where to  lay  his  head,  Francis  dedicated  himself  to  the  Lady 
Poverty.  He  practiced  self  renunciation  to  the  utmost  limit, 
but  without  moroseness.  As  the  "Poor  Man"  he  espoused 

220 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES        221 

Poverty  in  a  spirit  of  knightly  romance  and  poetic  gaiety.  He 
gave  himself  up  to  work  among  the  outcasts  of  society,  tending 
the  lepers  with  especial  care.  His  enthusiasm  attracted  count- 
less disciples  who  followed  him  without  any  thought  of  be- 
coming a  new  order,  but  simply  with  the  idea  of  obeying 
Christ's  injunction  to  forsake  all  and  follow  Him.  Francis  made 
his  headquarters  at  Assisi  at  the  Portiuncula  where  he  and  his 
companions  taught  the  simplest  of  gospels.  He  called  his  early 
friends  his  "Knights  of  his  Round  Table." 

The  movement  was  essentially  popular  and  lay.  Francis 
acted  with  prophetic  rather  than  priestly  authority.  In  1212, 
though  only  a  deacon,  he  admitted  St.  Clara  to  the  monastic 
life  and  gave  her  the  veil.  Thus  he  inaugurated  what  became 
the  female  side  of  Franciscanism,  the  Poor  Clares,  or  Minor- 
esses.  What  Francis  did,  rather  than  to  plan  an  order,  was  to 
set  up  an  ideal,  a  Christlike  following  of  Poverty.  His  "rule" 
was  not  a  code  of  laws,  but  the  simplest  of  Gospel  precepts. 
His  brotherhood  was  one  consisting  of  the  poorest  of  the  poor, 
the  Minores,  as  contrasted  with  the  Majores  of  the  Italian  city 
states.  Further,  Francis  was  not  in  any  sense  conventional. 
He  was  never  a  monk  at  heart,  but  always  a  child  of  genius. 
He  was  enthusiastic  for  the  promulgation  of  his  message 
throughout  the  world  and  sent  his  brethren  (fratres — friars) 
to  proclaim  it  far  and  wide.  He  himself  went  and  preached 
before  the  Sultan  of  Egypt  at  Damietta,  and  he  established 
missions  in  the  Holy  Land.  But  there  was  nothing  formal  in 
his  Rule  and  he  himself  was  the  most  impulsive  of  men,  paying 
little  regard  to  what  people  expected  of  him,  often  causing 
offence  by  his  very  simplicity  and  naturalness.  Francis  was  no 
scholar,  his  training  had  been  that  of  a  layman;  and  he  loved 
nature  rather  than  books.  He  gave  the  only  Bible  in  the  Por- 
tiuncula to  a  poor  widow,  saying  that  as  she  had  given  two  sons 
to  the  order,  it  was  only  right  that  he  should  assist  her.  He, 
half  jestingly,  forbade  a  brother  to  have  a  Breviary  of  his  own. 
On  his  deathbed  instead  of  showing  the  usual  monkish  repug- 
nance, almost  necessary  for  a  reputation  for  sanctity  at  this 
time,  he  asked  to  see  a  lady  who  had  given  him  a  lamb  to  be 


222  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

his  companion;  and  "Brother  Giacomina,"  as  he  called  her, 
was  present  when  he  died.  All  the  stories  of  him  reveal  a  sim- 
plicity of  heart,  which  refused  to  be  restrained  by  man's  ideas 
of  what  a  typical  saint  should  be.  In  this  lay  the  originality  of 
the  singularly  beautiful  character  of  the  Poor  Man  of  Assisi. 
In  his  essay  on  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes,  Macaulay  ex- 
tols the  wisdom  of  Rome  in  its  treatment  of  St.  Francis.  The 
passage  is  as  brilliant  as  it  appears  to  the  writer  of  this  chapter 
to  be  misleading.  Macaulay  dwells  on  the  consummate  policy 
of  the  Roman  Church  in  dealing  with  enthusiasts.  "The  ig- 
norant enthusiast  whom  the  Anglican  Church  makes  an  enemy, 
and  whatever  the  polite  and  learned  may  think,  a  most  dan- 
gerous enemy,  the  Catholic  Church  makes  a  champion.  She 
bids  him  nurse  his  beard,  covers  him  with  a  garb  of  coarse  dark 
stuff,  ties  a  rope  round  his  waist,  and  sends  him  forth  to  teach 
in  her  name.  He  costs  her  nothing.  He  takes  not  a  ducat  away 
from  her  beneficed  clergy.  He  lives  by  the  alms  of  those  who 
respect  his  spiritual  character,  and  are  grateful  for  his  instruc- 
tions. He  preaches,  not  exactly  in  the  style  of  Masillon,  but 
in  the  way  which  moves  the  passions  of  uneducated  hearers; 
and  all  his  influence  is  employed  to  strengthen  the  Church  of 
which  he  is  the  minister." 

On  the  surface  these  words  apply  to  Franciscanism;  but 
further  acquaintance  reveals  a  fallacy  underlying  them.  The 
Church  showed  marvellous  skill  in  directing  the  movement 
into  the  desired  current.  But  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  Franciscanism  which  exercised  so  powerful  an  effect,  and 
became  so  useful  to  the  Church,  was  not  the  movement  in- 
augurated by  Francis,  but  one  engineered  by  clearer  heads 
and  colder  hearts  than  his.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  order  be- 
came a  kind  of  irregular  army,  invaluable  to  the  cause  of  the 
Papacy;  its  leaders  strengthened  the  intellectual  influence  of 
the  Church.  Its  enthusiasts,  on  the  contrary,  became  a  danger 
which  all  the  power  of  the  Inquisition  was  evoked  to  destroy. 

The  appearance  of  St.  Francis  was  a  danger  at  least  as 
threatening  as  that  of  heresy  in  Languedoc.  The  very  beauty 
of  the  man's  character  made  him  a  formidable  peril.  Nothing 


THE   FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES         223 

could  have  made  Francis  into  an  heresiarch  or  a  radical.  He 
lacked  the  arrogance  of  the  one,  and  the  restless  discontent  of 
the  other.  Revolutionaries  are  almost  always  unlovable;  their 
fierce  indignation  at  all  they  consider  abuses,  their  passion  to 
uproot  what  seems  to  impede  the  progress  of  humanity, 
whether  in  religion  or  politics,  makes  them  unpleasant  to  live 
with.  Their  very  love  inspires  them  with  a  passion  of  hatred. 
Francis  lacked  all  these  traits.  He  did  not  lash  the  clergy  with 
abuse  like  Henry  the  Deacon;  he  had  a  passionate  reverence 
for  the  Mystery  of  the  Altar;  he  sought  no  political  ideals,  like 
Arnold  of  Brescia.  All  he  required  for  himself,  all  that  he  asked 
of  his  followers  was  to  follow  the  example  of  Christ,  and  to 
practice  utter  renunciation  as  the  spouse  of  Holy  Poverty. 

Herein  lay  the  danger.  There  was  but  one  St.  Francis,  and 
he  had  scores  of  imitators;  and,  in  religion  especially,  admirers 
who  try  to  emulate  often  simply  caricature  the  original. 
Moreover,  what  had  begun  as  a  following  of  pure  evangelical 
principles  might  in  less  worthy  hands  become  a  dangerous 
heresy,  subversive  of  the  foundations  of  society.  If  the  world 
were  to  be  flooded  by  hosts  of  undisciplined  admirers  of 
Francis,  Holy  Poverty  might  degenerate  into  something  very 
unholy  indeed,  and  their  efforts  be  concentrated  on  an  attack 
upon  the  Church  which  was,  after  all,  the  great  property 
holder  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Nor  were  indications  want- 
ing later  as  to  what  a  general  undisciplined  Franciscan  move- 
ment might  have  been. 

Such  a  situation  called  for  all  the  unrivalled  diplomacy  of 
Rome,  and  it  justified  its  reputation  by  the  skill  displayed  in 
meeting  the  difficulty.  Francis  and  his  company  visited  Inno- 
cent III,  taking  with  them  a  simple  evangelical  rule  of  pov- 
erty. The  Pope  was  at  first  disposed  to  dismiss  these  uncouth 
petitioners.  A  vision — perhaps  reflection — induced  him  to  lis- 
ten when  they  returned.  He  sent  them  away  with  kind  words, 
gave  all  the  tonsure,  admitting  them  thereby  into  the  ranks 
of  the  clergy,  and  told  them  verbally  that  they  might  go  and 
preach.  But  he  committed  himself  to  nothing,  gave  them  no 
documents   and   let  things   take   their   course.   Thus   Francis 


224  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

could  neither  say  that  the  Pope  had  rejected  him,  nor  show 
any  proof  that  he  was   acting  under  authority  from   Rome. 
The  Cardinals  took  up  the  matter  and  showed  interest  in  the 
ideals  of  Francis.  Chief  among  these  was  Ugolino,  Bishop  of 
Ostia,  already  an  aged  man,  who  was  destined  as  Gregory  IX 
to  rule  in  extreme  old  age  with  a  vigor  often  denied  to  youth. 
Of  noble  birth,  a  statesman  and  a  lawyer,  Ugolino  may  have 
had  a  sincere  admiration  for  one  so  holy  and  so  different  from 
himself  as  Francis;  but  he  doubtless  saw  in  the  Saint  a  most 
fitting  instrument  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  Holy  See. 
At   any  rate  he  supplied  the  new  order  with  the  guidance 
necessary  to  make  it   a  permanent  institution.   He  found   a 
most  efficient  helper  in  one  of  Francis's  followers  and  friends. 
Brother  Elias  is  one  of  the   most  perplexing  figures   in   the 
movement.  Though  sprung  from  the  common  people,  he  was 
learned   and   ambitious,  with  the  masterful  spirit  of  a  born 
ruler.  He  was  a  layman  all  his  life;  and  for  many  years— they 
ultimately   became   bitter   enemies — cooperated  with  Ugolino 
both  as  Cardinal,  and  as  Pope  Gregory  IX.  Both  possessed  a 
power  of  organizing  an  order  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  it  per- 
manence by  diverting  it  from  its  original  object.  The  first  pol- 
icy of  the  Papacy  was  to  induce  Francis  to  consent  to  amalga- 
mate with  the  Dominicans  or  some  other  order,  but  here  the 
Saint  showed  an  unexpected  firmness,  and  in  most  respectful 
terms  declined  to  let  his  followers  be  merged.  Failing  this,  it 
was  necessary  to  provide  Franciscanism  with  a  rule;  and  a 
definite  one  was  sanctioned  in  1223  by  Honorius  III.  Francis 
had   already  withdrawn   from  the   leadership   of  his   society, 
which  was  exercised  by  Elias  as  his  Vicar  General.  Given  up 
to  austerities  and  devotion,  the  influence  of  Francis  in  prac- 
tical matters  became  more   and   more  negligible,  though  he 
and  his  faithful  companions,  like  Brother  Leo,  saw  and  de- 
plored the  Order's  coming  degeneracy,  which  was  bound  to 
follow  their  abandonment  of  the  ideal  of  utter  poverty.  But  it 
was  not  till  the  death  of  Francis  that  Ugolino  and  Elias  came 
out  into  the  open.  Though  Francis  had  expressed  a  strong  ob- 
jection to  his  order  having  churches,  save  of  the  poorest  de- 


THE    FRIARS,    THE    SCHOOLMEN,    THE    UNIVERSITIES        225 

scription,  it  was  decided  that  so  sacred  a  body  as  his  could 
only  rest  in  a  church  which  should  rival  the  most  sumptuous 
in  Christendom;  and  Elias  proceeded  to  prepare  this  and  to 
collect  money  to  make  it  worthy  of  the  greatest  saint  of  the 

age. 

Brother  Elias  has  been  proclaimed  to  be  the  "Paul"  of 
the  Franciscan  movement;  and,  though  the  analogy  between 
it  and  Christianity  is  frequently  pressed,  it  is  most  precarious. 
If  it  is  true  that  Paul  by  relaxing  the  severe  Judaism  of  the 
primitive  Church  so  far  popularised  the  new  religion  as  to 
make  it  worldwide,  Elias  certainly  did  something  similar  to 
Paul.  St.  Francis  was  absolutely  uncompromising  in  insisting 
on  poverty  and  gospel  simplicity.  The  church  at  Assisi,  and 
the  ceremonies  of  his  canonization  were  a  distinct  repudiation 
of  both.  The  order  was  to  become  a  permanent  institution, 
with  activities  everywhere,  especially  in  the  growing  univer- 
sities. The  Founder  was  to  become  a  saint  of  the  first  magni- 
tude, an  object  of  unbounded  reverence,  as  the  one  man  who 
had  been  honoured  by  bearing  on  his  body  the  marks  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  in  the  Stigmata,  the  five  wounds  in  hands,  feet, 
and  side.  Those  in  the  hands  were  asserted  to  be  in  the  exact 
form  of  the  nails  which  had  transfixed  the  sacred  hands  of  the 
Redeemer. 

This  reversal  of  all  Francis  had  taught  was  not  brought 
about  without  opposition.  His  original  disciples  were  stalwart 
for  his  insistence  on  absolute  poverty,  as  was  his  Testament, 
written  in  his  last  days  (1226).  In  it,  whilst  enjoining  the 
profoundest  reverence  to  the  priesthood  and  the  most  unfal- 
tering orthodoxy  of  belief,  Francis  declares  that  he  and  his 
brethren  loved  poor  and  abandoned  churches,  and  were  ig- 
norant men,  submissive  to  all.  He  had  worked  with  his  own 
hands  and  desired  his  friars  to  do  the  same.  They  were  not  to 
receive  churches,  habitations  and  all  that  men  build  for  them, 
nor  to  request  bulls  in  their  favour  from  Rome.  This  was  no 
new  Rule:  Francis  had  caused  a  short  and  simple  Rule  to  be 
written,  which  the  Pope  had  confirmed.  Above  all  the  Breth- 
ren were  not  to  make  glosses  either  in  the  Rule  or  in  the  will, 


226  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

but  to  receive  them  as  they  were  written  in  a  clear  and  simple 
manner. 

In  July,  1227,  less  than  a  year  after  Francis's  death, 
Brother  Leo  wrote  the  Sacrum  Commercium,  a  dialogue  be- 
tween Francis  and  Holy  Poverty,  in  which  she  explains  all  the 
shifts  which  would  be  made  to  displace  her  in  the  Order,  and 
all  the  pleas  which  Avarice,  under  the  guise  of  Prudence,  will 
prefer.  To  the  same  period,  and  probably  also  to  Brother  Leo, 
is  due  the  Speculum  Perfectionisy  in  which  Francis  is  repre- 
sented as  perfectly  uncompromising  in  his  insistence  on  Pov- 
erty. Even  books  may  not  be  owned  by  his  Friars. 

Such  then  was  the  attitude  of  the  immediate  followers  of 
Francis,  the  Spirituals,  who  took  him  literally  and  desired  to 
carry  out  his  wishes.  But  a  life  so  idealised  demands  a  belief 
that  the  perpetuation  of  human  society  is  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference, and  is  usually  accompanied  by  a  hope  that  something 
will  happen  to  make  the  present  conditions  of  life  entirely  un- 
necessary. Even  to  the  literal  acceptation  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  the  Apocalypse  is  a  necessary  complement.  Its  sig- 
nificance must  be  that  the  things  of  this  life  are  so  unimpor- 
tant that  the  end  of  all  things  is  at  hand.  To  human  nature 
angelic  self-renunciation  demands  some  sort  of  interim  ethic:  it 
is  only  possible  to  accept  such  counsels  of  perfection,  because 
this  world  has  a  brief  course  left  to  run.  Spiritual  Franciscan- 
ism  consequently  had  its  eschatology  based  on  the  Everlast- 
ing Gospel  of  Abbot  Joachim  of  Flore  {d.  1200);  and  it  was 
believed  that  the  end  of  the  age  was  fixed  for  1260.  But  the 
policy  of  the  Church  of  Rome  looked  to  a  longer  future;  and 
Ugolino  and  Elias  legislated  and  acted  so  as  to  make  Francis- 
canism  permanent. 

To  understand  the  policy  of  the  "liberal"  Franciscan 
party  it  is  desirable  to  study  the  history  of  how  the  Life  of 
the  Founder  came  to  be  written  and  how  his  Rule  was  modi- 
fied. 

In  view  of  the  disputes  within  the  Order,  the  rivalry  of  the 
Dominicans  and  the  hostility  of  the  monks  and  parish  priests, 
it  became  necessary  that  the  facts  of  the  life  of  a  Saint,  so 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES        227 

popular  and  so  honoured  by  the  Roman  Church,  should  be 
put  before  the  world  in  as  edifying  a  light  as  possible.  Accord- 
ingly in  the  year  which  followed  the  Canonization,  July  16, 
1228,  Thomas  of  Celano,  by  order  of  Gregory  IX,  composed 
his  life  of  St.  Francis.  This,  though  the  earliest  life,  is  not  the 
most  primitive  account,  because  it  has  an  obvious  bias  in 
favour  of  Elias,  then  an  especial  favourite  of  the  Pope.  How- 
ever, in  representing  Francis  as  favourable  to  Elias,  Celano 
had  certainly  not  erred  as  the  Saint  was  greatly  under  the 
fascination  of  the  influence  of  Elias,  the  ablest  of  his  followers. 

Elias  was  Minister  General  from  1232  to  1239.  His  arbitrary 
rule  disgusted  the  educated  Franciscans  on  the  one  hand,  and 
also  exasperated  the  Spirituals.  With  his  fall  and  his  bitter 
quarrel  with  Gregory  IX,  the  party  of  the  stricter  observance 
reasserted  its  influence,  and  the  Life  by  Thomas  of  Celano  be- 
came undesirable.  Accordingly  under  the  generalate  of  Cres- 
centius  de  Jesi  (1244  to  1247)  the  Brethren  who  had  anything 
to  tell  were  invited  to  send  in  their  communications.  The  final 
result  of  this  was  the  Legend  of  the  Three  Companions,  the 
Friars  Leo,  Angelo,  and  Rufino.  Here  the  early  story  of  the 
Saint  is  told  with  great  freshness  and  simplicity  but  all  the 
later  part  of  his  career  is  omitted — possibly  it  was  excised — 
and  the  reader  is  brought  suddenly  to  his  closing  hours,  death 
and  canonization.  Immediately  after  this  Thomas  of  Celano 
produced  the  first  part  of  his  Second  Life.  The  second  part 
came  when  Giovanni  di  Parma  was  general  (1247-1257).  In 
this  the  changes  in  policy  in  the  headquarters  of  the  Order  are 
seen.  Poverty  is  now  praised  and  the  position  of  the  Spiritual 
party  strongly  asserted. 

The  last  phase  of  the  struggle  was  the  generalate  of  St. 
Bonaventure.  The  friends  of  Giovanni  di  Parma  received  the 
predictions  of  Abbot  Joachim;  but  the  new  age  did  not  come 
in  1260.  Bonaventure,  a  learned  professor  of  Paris,  threw  his 
whole  weight  on  the  side  of  those  who  wanted  to  make  the 
Order  a  school  of  piety  and  learning.  The  Spirituals  were  con- 
fined in  monasteries.  Giovanni  di  Parma,  by  the  special  favour 
of  Cardinal  Ottobon,  was  permitted  to  retire  to  the  Convent 


228  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  Greccio;  and  at  the  Chapter  of  Narbonne  Bonaventure  was 
commissioned  to  write  the  official  life  of  St.  Francis.  At  the 
next  chapter  held  at  Paris  all  copies  of  other  legends  were 
ordered  to  be  destroyed,  in  order  that  Bonaventure's  Life 
might  be  the  sole  authority.  It  is  only  by  good  fortune  that 
the  earlier  lives  have  been  preserved.  In  the  authorised  ver- 
sion of  the  Legend  Francis  is  presented,  not,  in  his  natural 
simplicity,  but  as  a  typical  wonder-working  Saint;  nor  do  the 
smooth  periods  of  Bonaventure  give  the  real  man,  of  whom  in 
later  literature  we  get  glimpses  in  the  Fioretti  or  Little  Flowers 
of  St.  Francis.  The  Saint  as  well  as  the  Order  had  been  changed 
and  forced  into  a  conventional  mould.  One  thing,  however,  is 
evident  from  the  story  of  the  evolution  of  Franciscanism  under 
ecclesiastical  pressure  that,  but  for  what  occurred,  the  Order 
would  never  have  exerted  the  influence  it  did,  nor  have  proved 
so  great  an  example  of  rapid  degeneration. 

It  has  been  already  shown  how  Dominic  was  moved  to 
found  his  Order  of  Preachers.  His  story  lacks  the  romance 
which   is   attached  to  the  origin  of  Franciscanism.   A  noble 
Spaniard  brought  up  in  clerical  surroundings,  he  could  never 
touch  the  imagination  in  the  way  St.  Francis  had  done.  Yet 
during  his  lifetime  Dominic  enjoyed  the  favour  of  the  papal 
court   and   was   recognised    as   a   valued    adviser.    But  whilst 
Francis  was  sending  forth  his  Friars  far  and  wide,  Dominic 
had  for  some  time  but  seven  devoted  adherents;  and  though 
later  his  order  grew  very  rapidly,  it  increased  more  slowly  than 
that  of  Francis.  The  two  saints  met  in  Italy.  Dominic  visited 
Assisi,  and  was  so  amazed  at    the    simplicity   of  the    life   of 
the  Portiuncula,  that  he  made  the  decision  to  follow  Poverty. 
But  the  real  barrier  between  them  was  that  Francis  was  a 
believer  in  evangelical  simplicity,  whilst  Dominic,  having  to 
combat  heresy,  realised  the  need  of  learning.  In  vain  there- 
fore did  he  put  on  the  cord  of  Francis,  and  beg   that   their 
work  might  be  united  in  one  order;  their  ideas  were  too  in- 
compatible, and  other  means  had  to   be   used   to    make   the 
Franciscans  include  the  learned  of  this   world.    Still,    though 
in  both  orders  poverty  and  learning  were  in  the  end  skilfully 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES        229 

combined,  the  Friars  of  St.  Francis  were  always  the  professed 
companions  of  the  Poor,  whilst  those  of  St.  Dominic  were  the 
accredited  champions  of  the  Church. 

Dominic  had  instituted  an  order  of  Tertiaries,  which  had 
great  influence  on  the  development  of  the  friars.  Men  and 
women  who  lived  in  the  world  were  eligible.  They  lived  under 
a  sort  of  monastic  rule  adapted  to  secular  life  and  gave  the 
Dominicans  a  devoted  body  of  lay  folk  of  whose  support  they 
were  assured.  Though  Francis  had  demanded  absolute  poverty, 
his  followers  allowed  their  friends  to  become  Tertiaries,  and 
thus  gained  the  same  advantages  as  their  rivals. 

The  impulse  which  drove  men  and  women  into  these  men- 
dicant orders  marks  a  change  in  the  development  of  Chris- 
tianity; and  in  this  respect  St.  Dominic  was  a  pioneer.  For  cen- 
turies the  monks  had  retired  from  the  sinful  world  to  lead  a  life 
of  contemplation.  Only  circumstances  made  them  take  an 
active  part  as  missionaries  and  reformers.  The  ideal  they  set 
before  them  was  to  be  alone  in  communion  with  God.  But  by 
the  twelfth  century  monasticism  had  spent  its  strength.  There 
were  no  new  orders,  and  few  monasteries  were  founded.  Hence- 
forward the  object  of  all  who  felt  a  call  to  a  higher  life  was  not 
so  much  to  leave  the  world  as  to  stay  in  it,  though  not  to  be  of 
it,  and  to  help  men  by  acts  of  benevolence,  or  to  become 
spiritual  soldiers  in  defence  of  the  Church. 

A  new  ideal  such  as  this  results  in  a  stimulus  to  intellectual 
activity;  and  circumstances  contributed  to  make  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Friars  coincident  with  the  learned  revival  known  as 
Scholasticism,  due  to  the  introduction  of  the  philosophy  of 
Aristotle  into  Western  Europe. 

Hitherto  Aristotle  had  only  been  known  in  the  schools  as 
a  teacher  of  Logic  through  his  Categories  and  De  Interpretatione. 
In  the  twelfth  century  the  Jewish  Aristotelians,  Avicenna, 
Averroes  and  Maimonides  brought  his  philosophy  and  science 
into  notice;  and  first  through  Arabic,  and  later  through  trans- 
lations direct  from  the  Greek,  the  whole  of  his  writings  were 
known  in  Western  Europe  by  1272.  After  a  long  period  of 
speculation  about  the  highest  mysteries,  based  on  insufficient 


230  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

data,  a  complete  system  of  philosophy  was  available;  but  this 
was  naturally  suspected  as  heathen  teaching,  which  had  come 
into  the  schools  through  the  medium  of  Jewish  and  Moham- 
medan philosophers.  The  teaching  of  Aristotle  was  conse- 
quently condemned  by  authority  in  1210  and  121 5.  But  ec- 
clesiastical censures  which  could  reduce  emperors  and  kings  to 
submission,  and  lay  waste  far  and  fertile  territories,  were  of 
no  avail  against  the  new  learning,  which  became  dominant  in 
the  schools  and  rising  universities  and  soon  occupied  the  at- 
tention of  the  Friars. 

As  might  be  expected,  each  order  was  influenced  by  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  originally  intended.  The  Dominicans 
were  preachers  and  theologians.  Their  warfare  was  with  heresy: 
their  chief  arguments  were  based  on  appeals  to  the  reason.  As 
teachers  they  naturally  inclined  to  a  logical  system  of  theology, 
and  fell  back  upon  the  Scriptures  and  the  traditions  of  the 
Church.  All  innovations  in  religion  were  repugnant  to  them,  as 
to  men  pledged  to  maintain  the  Faith  pure  and  unimpaired. 
Their  favourite  teachers  were  St.  Paul  and  Augustine,  and  their 
object  was  to  make  their  scholars  clear,  logical  and  dogmatic. 
The  Franciscans,  on  the  other  hand,  appealed  rather  to  the 
emotion.  They  aspired  to  bring  the  Gospel  to  the  poor  and 
unhappy.  Their  ideal  Teacher  was  the  Jesus  of  the  early  Gos- 
pels, who  went  about  among  the  common  people  as  their 
friend.  Their  work  in  hospital  and  lazar  house  inclined  them 
to  the  study  of  sickness  in  all  its  forms  and,  therefore,  of 
medicine,  and  caused  them  to  have  an  interest  in  the  practical 
rather  than  in  the  speculative  sciences.  As  missioners,  they 
were  anxious  to  discover  what  would  best  appeal  to  the  re- 
ligious emotions  of  the  people,  and  were  more  solicitous  to 
kindle  zeal  than  to  reproduce  antiquity.  It  is  not  therefore 
surprising  to  find  that  the  severe  theologians  who  attempted 
to  answer  all  possible  objections  were  Dominicans,  and  the  ad- 
vocates of  such  innovations  of  belief,  like  that  of  the  Immacu- 
late Conception  of  the  Virgin,  Franciscans.  Nor  was  it  un- 
natural that  the  Order  of  St.  Francis  should  produce  the 
pioneer  of  modern  science  in  Friar  Roger  Bacon. 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES        23 1 

In  the  thirteenth  century  the  typical  Franciscan  doctors  were 
Alexander  of  Hales,  Bonaventura,  and  Duns  Scotus,  and  the 
leading  Dominican  scholars  were  Albert  the  Great  and  Thomas 
Aquinas.  It  is  noteworthy  that  two  of  the  Franciscans  were  of 
British  birth;  of  the  others  named,  Bonaventura  and  Aquinas 
were  Italians,  and  Albert  the  Great  a  German.  The  main 
scenes  of  their  activities  were  Paris,  Oxford,  and  Cologne. 

The  text  books  of  the  Schools  were  called  Summce,  or  Com- 
pendiums  of  Theology.  Such  a  work  was  Abelard's  Sic  et  Non, 
in  which  he  puts  the  opposite  opinions  of  the  Fathers  parallel 
to  one  another.  There  were  many  similar  books  but  the  most 
famous  was  the  Sentences  of  Peter  Lombard.  This,  the  hand- 
book for  the  "Masters"  who  taught  in  the  schools,  is  in  four 
books.  The  first  is  "The  object  of  our  happiness,  God;  The 
second  means  of  attaining  this  happiness,  Creatures;  the 
third,  Virtues,  Men  and  Angels,  that  is  the  special  means  of 
happiness,  and  subjects  of  happiness.  The  topic  of  these  three 
books  is  things  (res),  that  of  the  fourth  is  signs  (signa),  i.e., 
the  sacraments."  The  object  of  this  and  like  works  was  to  state 
Christian  doctrine  in  a  clear  and  logical  form  so  as  to  prove  a 
starting  point  for  philosophical  teaching.  The  Scholasticism  of 
the  thirteenth  century  may  be  described  as  Summce  plus 
Aristotle.  Peter  Lombard  lived  before  the  recovery  of  Aris- 
totle; and  the  first  of  the  new  scholastics  was  an  Englishman, 
Alexander  of  Hales,  who  taught  in  Paris  in  about  1220.  In 
1221  he  entered  the  Franciscan  Order  and  died  in  1247.  He  was 
known  as  the  "Irrefrangible  Doctor"  and  his  great  work  was 
a  Summa  Universes  Theologies.  He  was  the  first  to  give  the 
impulse  in  the  direction  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy  and  his 
disciples  were  the  great  schoolmen  of  the  century.  He  is  spe- 
cially noteworthy  for  the  use  he  makes  of  Aristotle's  Ethics  in 
his  moral  teaching. 

Alexander  of  Hales  was  followed  by  an  even  more  famous 
Franciscan — Bonaventura,  the  biographer  of  St.  Francis, 
known  as  the  "Seraphic  Doctor."  He  was  born  before  the  death 
of  the  Saint  and  is  said  to  have  been  brought  to  him  to  be 
healed  when  a  little  child.  Bonaventura  seems  to  have  been  a 


232  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

versatile  man,  capable  of  profound  enquiry,  mystical  piety, 
and  administrative  power.  He  was  the  seventh  General  of  the 
Franciscan  order  and  his  work  in  this  capacity  may  have  drawn 
him  aside  somewhat  more  than  some  of  his  contemporaries 
from  his  studies.  The  year  before  his  death  at  the  Council  of 
Lyons  he  was  made  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Albano. 

The  discussion  of  the  philosophy  of  Bonaventura  belongs 
properly  to  a  philosophical  work;  here  it  is  sufficient  merely  to 
indicate  the  general  trend  of  his  mind.  Of  it,  one  may  perhaps 
say  that  philosophy  is  subordinate  to  theology,  and  theology 
to  the  desire  for  mystical  communion  with  God.  The  highest 
light  is  Scripture,  the  sacraments  are  the  true  remedy  for  the 
soul,  all  knowledge  should  minister  to  the  thought  of  God  and 
man's  relationship  to  him.  Herein  lies  the  whole  purport  of 
scholasticism.  Theology  is  the  queen  of  the  sciences,  the  end  of 
all  knowledge  being  God.  Thus  far  it  differs  in  no  respect  from 
all  which  bears  the  name  of  Platonism,  the  object  of  which  is 
directed  to  the  Supreme  Being,  the  Idea  of  Ideas.  Natural 
science  is  consequently  only  of  secondary  importance  if  it 
ministers  to  mere  utility,  or  to  the  comfort  and  convenience 
of  the  human  race.  Astronomy,  for  example,  is  not  primarily 
intended  to  aid  us  in  navigating  ships,  or  forecasting  the  sea- 
sons but  to  raise  our  minds  to  the  contemplation  of  Eternal 
Truths.  Christian  philosophy  differs  from  that  of  the  ancients 
in  so  far  as  it  assumes  a  revelation  which  places  the  Truth 
within  our  reach.  The  believer  has  in  Scriptures,  in  the  Sacra- 
ments, and  in  the  Church  a  means  of  access  to  God.  He  pos- 
sesses a  body  of  irrefrangible  truth,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  reason 
to  align  itself  with  this  divine  knowledge.  The  possession  of 
Aristotle's  physical  and  other  treatises  hindered  rather  than 
helped  forward  scientific  study,  in  so  far  that  the  philosopher 
believed  that  he  possessed  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  visible 
world,  and  could  press  forward  unimpeded  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  invisible  realities. 

The  next  step,  therefore,  was  to  do  for  secular  and  divine 
knowledge  what  had  already  been  done  for  the  Civil  and 
Canon  Law,  to  codify,  to  arrange  and  to  explain  them  so  that 


THE  FRIARS,  THE   SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES         233 

in  future  mankind,  being  in  possession  of  all  that  was  necessary 
for  the  one  important  thing,  eternal  salvation,  might  set  its 
mind  at  rest.  This  was  attempted  and  in  a  certain  degree  ac- 
complished by  the  two  famous  Dominicans,  Albert  of  Bollstadt, 
surnamed  "the  Great,"  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  "Angelic 
Doctor." 

Albert,  Count  of  Bollstadt  in  Suabia,  is  one  of  those  in- 
tellectual giants  who  are  the  glory  of  Germany.  He  was  born 
about  1 193  and  died  in  1280.  He  taught  first  at  Cologne  and 
afterwards  at  Paris,  till  he  was  sent  back  to  Cologne  to  estab- 
lish a  school  there.  For  two  years,  1260-62,  he  held  the  see  of 
Regensburg,  but  insisted  on  resigning  to  return  to  his  studies. 
His  immense  knowledge  covered  the  entire  field  of  human 
science.  He  set  out  to  place  before  the  men  of  his  age  the  sum 
of  the  teaching  of  Aristotle  and  his  Arabian  commentators. 
How  far  Albert  was  an  original  thinker,  or  the  greatest  of  com- 
pilers is  open  to  dispute;  but  the  extent  of  his  knowledge  is 
undeniable.  He  explored  the  field  of  natural  science;  but, 
though  he  is  tainted  with  the  credulity  of  the  ancients  on  matters 
which  could  have  been  tested  by  experiment,  he  must  not  be 
hastily  condemned.  He  has  been  claimed  to  be  the  first  since 
Theophrastus,  the  contemporary  of  Aristotle,  who  made  a  truly 
scientific  study  of  plants.  Nor  was  he  content  to  believe  that 
Aristotle  had  said  the  last  word.  Like  Bacon,  he  admitted  that 
much  remained  to  be  discovered,  and  acknowledged  that  ex- 
periments must  be  repeated  to  prove  a  demonstration.  The  last 
volume  of  Albert's  works  is  devoted  to  the  glories  of  Mary. 
Here  boundless  devotion  is  shown  to  the  Virgin  Mother  of  the 
Lord,  and  her  wonders  are  recorded  and  accepted  with  reverent 
credulity.  The  deeply  religious  feeling  of  Albert  and  his  age 
here  manifests  itself.  His  undoubted  piety  towards  the  Virgin 
secured  his  more  secular  studies  from  all  reproach  of  a  desire 
for  mere  worldly  knowledge. 

The  glory  of  Albert  is  eclipsed  by  that  of  Aquinas,  who 
is  still  supposed  by  many  to  have  said  the  last  word  on  the 
theology  of  the  Church.  His  Summa  Theologies  has  been  well 
described  as  "the  supreme  achievement  of  scholastic  theology; 


234  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

indeed  as  a  reasoned  exposition  of  the  whole  body  of  Catholic 
doctrine  it  has  never  been  equalled."  In  our  own  age  this  has 
been  declared  by  the  highest  ecclesiastical  authority.  And  if 
the  Christian  revelation  is  final  and  complete,  if  here,  at  least, 
man  has  nothing  to  do  but  assimilate  its  teaching  through  the 
Church,  Thomas  occupies  an  unassailable  position.  For  his 
system  is  the  appeal  of  one  of  the  acutest  of  human  minds  to 
the  intellect,  though  he  admits  that  there  is  a  knowledge  of 
God  unattainable  by  man  save  by  revelation.  Every  statement 
is  subjected  to  the  test  of  reason,  all  possible  objections  are 
raised  and  met.  Medieval  doctrine  is  set  forth  with  perfect 
clearness  and  order,  and  in  this  way  those  who  refuse  to  hear 
the  Church  are  deliberate  sinners  against  the  light  of  reason. 
Heresy  therefore  is  not  only  the  worst  of  sins,  it  is  the  height 
of  folly.  All,  and  more  than  all,  which  St.  Dominic  can  have 
dreamed  of  St.  Thomas  accomplished.  He  is  truly  the  Atlas 
which  supports  the  globe  of  Catholic  dogma  to  this  day. 

The  Franciscan  Order  produced  a  rival  to  the  great  Domin- 
ican in  Duns  Scotus.  Though  his  nationality  is  disputed,  he 
was  certainly  educated  at  Oxford  and  taught  in  Paris  and  Co- 
logne. The  Franciscans  had  a  greater  success  in  England  than 
the  Dominicans,  partly  no  doubt  because  their  lives  seemed 
more  practical,  but  also  on  account  of  the  singular  freedom  of 
the  island  from  heresy.  This  made  the  Dominican  message  less 
necessary  to  the  country  because  there  were  no  heretics  to 
convert.  Scotus  attributes  far  less  importance  to  the  intellect 
and  more  to  the  will  than  Aquinas,  nor  does  he  favour  the 
idea  that  God's  supremacy  involves  the  acceptance  of  a 
doctrine  of  predestination.  His  followers,  "the  Scotists,"  were 
at  constant  war  with  those  of  Aquinas,  "the  Thomists,"  and 
their  disputes  long  agitated  the  schools.  Duns  Scotus  is  re- 
markable for  the  crabbed  character  of  his  vocabulary  and 
style. 

But  there  yet  remains  a  Franciscan,  an  enigma  in  his  own 
time,  and  a  wonder  to  all  succeeding  ages.  The  immense  eru- 
dition of  Germany  finds  a  typical  representative  in  the  Blessed 
Albert  the  Great,  as  does  the  clear  luminous  Italian  mind  in 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES         235 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  The  practical  character  of  the  English 
intellect  is  revealed  in  a  man,  less  honoured  by  the  Church, 
but  more  in  the  modern  world,  Friar  Roger  Bacon.  Orthodox  in 
opinion,  sharing  in  the  piety  of  his  age,  he  was  nevertheless  in 
the  true  sense  a  pioneer,  and  suffered  during  his  long  life  in 
consequence.  He  studied  at  Oxford  under  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable of  his  countrymen,  Robert  Grosseteste,  Bishop  of 
Lincoln,  for  whom  he  had  an  unbounded  admiration  as  the 
one  man  who  knew  all  the  sciences.  As  a  matter  of  course  he 
was  also  at  Paris,  where  he  obtained  the  degree  of  Doctor. 
He  must  have  joined  the  Franciscans  late  in  life,  as  he  says 
that  he  spent  immense  sums  of  money  on  prosecuting  his  studies, 
in  purchasing  books,  making  experiments  and  buying  instru- 
ments. In  twenty  years  he  expended  no  less  than  two  thousand 
pounds  on  his  researches.  The  motives  which  led  him  to  join 
the  order  are  unknown, — probably  genuine  devotion,  for 
Bacon  was  a  deeply  religious  man — but  in  doing  so  he  sacri- 
ficed his  fortune,  which  he  might  have  spent  on  acquiring 
knowledge,  and  his  liberty.  In  all  probability  as  a  Dominican 
he  would  have  been  the  glory  of  his  order,  but  the  Franciscans 
had  little  use  for  so  restless  and  enquiring  a  mind.  Bacon  be- 
lieved as  firmly  as  his  namesake  three  centuries  later  in  the 
infinite  possibility  of  science;  but  this  was  not  his  chief  offence 
in  his  own  age.  Boldly  he  attacked  the  methods  of  his  day  and 
exposed  what  seemed  to  him  the  fraudulent  pretentiousness  of 
its  knowledge,  its  reliance  on  the  authority  of  secondary  evi- 
dence, its  refusal  to  go  to  the  sources,  its  neglect  of  foreign 
languages,  its  skill  in  covering  ignorance  by  verbiage,  its 
foolish  questioning  about  subjects  of  which  nothing  can  be 
known,  such  as  the  nature  and  properties  of  angels. 

As  a  result  Bacon  was  constantly  disciplined,  and  spent 
much  of  his  later  days  in  prison.  Pope  Clement  IV  (1265- 
1268)  took  a  great  interest  in  his  discoveries  and  wrote  to 
him;  but  his  reign  was  too  short  and  too  occupied  to  be  of 
much  aid  to  the  philosopher.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  in  the  thirteenth  century,  though  the  spirit  of  intolerance 
prevailed,  Bacon's  troubles  were  due  to  his  being  a  Franciscan 


236  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

friar,  and  not  to  his  speculations,  theories  or  even  to  his  de- 
nunciation of  the  scholars  of  the  time.  The  very  fact  that 
Aristotelian  and  Arabian  learning  was  accepted  by  men  like 
Hales,  Bonaventura,  and  Aquinas,  shows  that  in  the  schools, 
at  least,  much  freedom  was  enjoyed;  and  as  a  rule  provided 
men  did  not  try  to  disturb  the  existing  order  of  society,  they 
were  tolerated  and  even  encouraged  by  those  in  authority 
in  the  Church. 

But  theology  and  philosophy  were  not  the  only  studies  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  highly  placed  clergy,  and  especially  the 
Popes,  numbered  in  their  ranks  men  who  were  trained  lawyers 
of  great  ability.  The  Normans  especially  took  to  the  law  as 
naturally  as  did  the  ancient  Romans.  The  thirteenth  century 
was  an  age  of  legists  throughout  Christendom.  The  necessities 
of  the  time  compelled  rulers  to  consider  their  exact  legal  posi- 
tion in  regard  to  one  another  and  especially  as  to  their  rights 
in  the  face  of  the  claims  of  the  Papacy. 

There  were  two  great  masses  of  Law:  Civil  Law  of  the 
Roman  Empire  and  the  Canon  Law  of  the  Church.  In  the 
great  contest  between  the  Emperors  and  the  Popes,  these 
Laws  also  rivalled  one  another,  as  the  rights  of  the  Empire 
were  being  opposed  to  those  of  the  Church.  Hence  the  lawyers 
were  busily  engaged  in  glossing  and  explaining  the  Civil  Law 
or  in  reducing  that  of  the  Church  to  a  formal  code.  In  a  sense 
the  work  of  the  jurisconsults  of  this  period  was  similar  to  that 
of  the  Masters  of  the  schools  in  theology  and  philosophy. 
Both  were  trying  to  settle  the  whole  question  by  a  scholastic 
Summa  or  a  legal  Digest. 

Though  the  study  of  Roman  Law  had  never  completely 
died  out,  and  it  had  superseded  the  barbarian  laws  under 
which  the  invaders  of  Italy  had  formerly  lived,  it  revived  in 
Bologna  early  in  the  twelfth  century  with  the  lectures  of  Ir- 
nerius.  Henceforward  Bologna  became  the  centre  of  legal  in- 
struction, not  only  in  Civil,  but  also  in  Canon  Law.  In  the 
middle  of  the  century  Gratian,  a  monk,  produced  his  Decretum, 
a  Code  of  the  Laws  of  the  Church,  divided  into  three  parts. 
The  first,  the  canons  of  Councils,  decrees  of  Popes,  and  opin- 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES        237 

ions  of  the  Father's;  the  second,  ecclesiastical  judgments;  the 
third,  rites  and  ceremonies.  The  work  was  completed  in  1234 
by  Gregory  IX,  who  entrusted  it  to  Raymond  of  Pennaforte, 
a  Spaniard.  This  Pope  may  be  regarded  as  the  Justinian  of 
the  Church,  and  it  is  significant  that  his  Decretals  appeared 
whilst  he  was,  during  an  interval  of  peace,  preparing  for  his 
death  struggle  with  Frederic  II. 

The  enthusiasm  with  which  the  clergy  betook  themselves 
to  the  study,  not  only  of  the  Canon  but  also  of  the  Civil  Law, 
alarmed  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  The  practice  of  both 
was  so  lucrative,  that  it  attracted  many  young  men  of  ability 
to  the  detriment  of  purely  theological  study.  Honorius  III  in 
1219  interdicted  the  teaching  of  Civil  Law  in  the  growing 
university  of  Paris.  But  no  papal  decree  could  stay  the  tide  in 
this  direction.  Not  only  in  Italy  and  the  Empire,  where  the 
rivalry  between  State  and  Church  was  acute,  but  also  in 
England  and  France  great  lawyers,  whether  in  Canon  or  Civil 
procedure,  or  both,  were  arising.  The  Laws  of  England  were 
written  upon  by  Bracton,  and  in  the  struggle  early  in  the 
fourteenth  century  between  Philip  the  Fair  and  the  Papacy, 
the  lawyers  played  a  prominent  part.  Theology,  and  the  phil- 
osophy of  Greece,  Canon  Law,  and  the  legislation  of  Rome, 
were  the  studies  of  medieval  Europe. 

The  study  of  medicine  revived  before  those  of  Theology  or 
Law,  the  earliest  school  being  that  of  Salerno  in  southern 
Italy,  which  appears  in  the  eleventh  century.  The  pursuit  of 
this  science  received  a  considerable  impulse  by  contact  with 
Jewish  and  Arabian  practitioners. 

The  new  learning  was  rather  prejudicial  to  literature  than 
otherwise.  The  twelfth  century  could  boast  of  real  scholars, 
like  the  Englishman  John  of  Salisbury;  but  the  philosophy  of 
the  next  generation  tended  to  depress  the  reviving  classicism 
of  an  earlier  age.  In  fact  in  scholasticism  we  see  science  chok- 
ing literature.  In  the  name  of  precision,  the  philosophers,  as 
they  have  frequently  done  since,  robbed  language  of  its 
beauty  by  the  invention  of  a  hideous  jargon  of  technicalities; 
and  in  their  endeavour  to  say  what  they  meant,  employed  a 


238  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

phraseology  which  no  reasonable  person  could  understand. 
The  age  was  certainly  one  of  intellectual  revival;  but  in  no 
sense  was  it  a  classical  one. 

The  activity  of  the  Scholastics  and  of  the  Friars  appears 
in  the  growing  universities  which  formed  so  marked  a  feature 
in  European  life.  The  word  University,  however,  was  not  used 
in  its  modern  sense.  In  writing  to  a  community,  the  expres- 
sion universitas  vestra  means  "all  of  you";  universitas  juris  is 
the  equivalent  for  "all  a  person's  legal  responsibilities  and 
rights."  The  term  is  also  applied  to  a  guild  or  college  of  any 
description,  especially  that  of  tradesmen,  as  Universitas  pisto- 
rum,  "the  guild  of  bakers."  It  was  only  late  that  it  was  ap- 
plied to  institutions  of  learning,  and  then  not  in  the  sense  of 
including  all  knowledge  in  its  curriculum,  but  of  allowing 
men  of  all  nations  to  study  at  a  particular  place.  The  old  ex- 
pression was  Studium  generate,  a  school  open  to  the  world. 

There  was  nothing  formal  in  the  beginning  of  a  univer- 
sity. It  was  the  creation  of  circumstances,  not  of  any  deliber- 
ate plan.  Rich  men  did  not  found  universities,  as  they  did 
monasteries,  with  lavish  endowments.  As  a  rule  their  origin 
was  democratic.  Sometimes  the  students  formed  the  society, 
and  the  teachers  were  their  hired  servants.  At  others  the 
university's  nucleus  was  a  guild  of  teachers.  Their  progress 
towards  official  recognition  was  gradual. 

The  parents  of  the  northern  universities  were  the  monas- 
tic schools,  at  which  men  like  William  of  Champeaux  and  his 
rival  Abelard  had  taught;  and  these  appear  in  the  time  of 
Charles  the  Great.  In  Italy,  however,  it  was  in  the  cities  that 
education  revived  and  this  was  mainly  directed  towards  the 
legal  study.  Probably  no  invasion  of  barbarians  succeeded  in 
entirely  destroying  the  old  municipal  spirit  of  the  towns  of 
Northern  Italy,  and  its  tradition  was  derived  from  the  days 
when  the  Roman  Law  prevailed.  The  old  legend  that  the 
Code  of  Justinian  had  been  rescued  in  a  single  copy,  when 
Amain  was  captured  in  1135,  has  long  been  rejected;  and  it  is 
tolerably  certain  that  the  knowledge  of  Roman  Law  had 
never  entirely  disappeared  in  Italy,  and  that  it  was  taught  in 


THE   FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES         239 

Schools  in  cities  like  Pavia,  Ravenna,  and  Rome.  Bologna, 
however,  early  attained  a  peculiar  preeminence  as  an  educa- 
tional centre,  particularly  in  the  Civil  Law.  But  the  Canon 
Law  was  also  studied,  and  the  representatives  of  the  two  in 
the  twelfth  century  are  the  Civilian,  Irnerius,  and  the  Canon- 
ist, Gratian.  According  to  a  tradition,  which  made  the  Count- 
ess Matilda  the  foundress  of  the  schools  of  Bologna,  their 
eighth  centenary  was  observed  in  1888.  There  is  a  charter  in 
1 1 58  of  Frederic  Barbarossa  recognizing  the  student  class  in 
Lombardy,  and  so,  in  a  sense,  in  Bologna.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  the  institution  was  more  spontaneous  in  its  origin 
and  growth.  Students  from  different  parts  of  the  world  assem- 
bled there.  For  protection,  which  non-citizens  were  wholly  or 
partially  denied,  these  organized  themselves  into  national  Uni- 
versities or  guilds,  appointed  their  own  officers  styled  "Rec- 
tors," hired  professors,  probably  natives,  to  instruct  them,  but 
permitted  them  to  have  no  control  over  their  arrangements, 
indeed  it  was  the  students  who  fined  and  punished  the  pro- 
fessors, and  not  vice  versa.  A  university  of  this  description,  so 
strange  to  us,  was  not  in  any  way  clerical  or  theological;  but 
this  must  not  mislead  the  reader  of  thinking  in  modern  terms. 
There  was  nothing  anti-clerical  in  the  sense  implying  jealousy 
of  church  interference.  The  Universitas  which  the  students 
formed  was  just  as  much  a  guild  as  that  of  any  trade  or  occu- 
pation. Nor  did  the  study  of  Law  in  Italy  imply  anything  less 
ecclesiastical  than  that  of  Theology  in  Paris.  When  the  rights 
of  the  Empire  were  in  conflict  with  those  of  the  Papacy,  Law 
was  in  fact  just  as  likely  to  arouse  controversy  in  the  Church 
as  questions  in  Theology,  and  every  dispute  involved  an  ap- 
peal to  the  Civil  and  to  the  Canon  Law. 

Very  different  was  the  origin  of  the  great  representative 
school  of  Paris  which  overshadowed  all  other  seats  of  learning 
in  northern  Europe.  It  was  to  Paris  in  the  days  of  Abelard 
and  William  of  Champeaux  that  scholars  flocked  to  hear  the 
rival  teachers  under  the  shadow  of  the  Cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame.  But  in  those  days  there  was  no  system  nor  discipline, 
and  the  proceedings  were  marked  by  a  complete  absence  of 


240  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

formality.  Still  the  nucleus  of  a  university  in  our  sense  of  the 
term  was  already  in  existence,  and  the  system  gradually  un- 
folded itself.  The  process  was  two-fold :  on  the  one  hand  there 
was  the  recognition  of  the  teachers  or  masters;  on  the  other 
the  organization  of  the  students.  It  became  evident  that  un- 
authorised teachers  could  not  be  allowed  to  hold  classes,  hence 
the  necessity  of  recognising  those  who  had  passed  through  a 
qualifying  course  of  study.  This  took  the  form  of  a  degree, 
which  not  only  gave  a  man  a  right  to  teach,  but  also  laid  on 
him  the  obligation  to  do  so.  The  Masters  tended  to  form  a 
corporation  of  their  own,  and  to  admit  others  to  their  rights 
and  privileges.  As  to  the  scholars,  they  came  from  all  coun- 
tries and  naturally  grouped  themselves  according  to  their  na- 
tionalities. At  Paris  in  the  thirteenth  century  four  nations 
were  recognised,  the  French,  the  Normans,  the  Picards,  and 
the  English.  Each  nation  had  its  representative  or  "Proctor." 
Over  the  four  a  "Rector"  ultimately  presided.  Paris  differed 
from  Bologna  in  being  a  more  distinctly  clerical  institution 
under  the  Bishop,  and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Cathedral.  It  also 
discouraged  the  study  of  Law  and  upheld  that  of  Theology, 
which  in  the  eyes  of  the  Popes  was  the  more  dangerous,  as 
likely  to  produce  heresy. 

Oxford,  the  second  northern  university  of  importance,  was, 
despite  its  claim  to  great  antiquity,  probably  an  offshoot  of 
Paris.  The  city  of  Oxford  was  not  only  neither  a  capital  nor  an 
episcopal  see;  it  had  not  even  a  great  monastery  to  form  the 
nucleus  of  a  school  like  that  of  St.  Denys  near  Paris.  The  town 
owed  its  importance  to  its  position  as  a  political  and  commer- 
cial centre,  and  is  seldom  mentioned  before  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, when  it  became  a  frequent  meeting  place  of  councils,  lay 
and  ecclesiastical.  It  seems  also  to  have  been  a  home  of  learn- 
ing, as  it  is  connected  with  the  lectures  on  the  Civil  Law  by 
Vacarius  in  11 49,  during  the  reign  of  Stephen,  and  with  the 
name  of  the  learned  Robert  Pullen,  the  first  English  Cardinal. 
It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  University  was  an  offshoot 
from  Paris,  due  to  the  troubles  of  11 67  when  Archbishop 
Thomas  Becket  was  in  exile  in  France,  and  Henry  II  had  re- 


THE  FRIARS,  THE  SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES        241 

called  all  English  clerks,  among  whom  would  be  included  the 
students  in  Paris. 

About  1 1 84  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  the  Welsh  traveller  and 
historian,  visited  Oxford  "where  the  clergy  excel  in  clerkship" 
and  read  his  Topography  of  Ireland  before  the  assembled  Mas- 
ters and  Scholars,  devoting  three  days  to  the  lecture,  and  on 
each  day  giving  a  meal  to  the  university  or  town.  The  diocese 
in  which  Oxford  was  situated  was  Lincoln,  and,  as  the  Bishop 
lived  far  away,  he  appointed  a  Chancellor  to  look  after  the 
University.  Apparently  there  was  no  such  official  till  1214. 
But  though  the  Bishops  of  Lincoln  always  acted  by  deputy, 
one  of  them  was  an  early  patron  of  Oxford.  This  was  Robert 
Grosseteste,  one  of  the  most  renowned  scholars  of  his  day, 
who  played  so  important  a  part  in  the  country  during  the 
troubles  of  Henry  Ill's  reign,  and  was  a  most  enthusiastic 
supporter  of  the  Franciscans.  Like  Paris,  the  University  was 
divided  between  nations,  though  here  there  were  but  two,  the 
Boreales  (Northerners),  including  Scots,  and  the  Australes 
(Southerners),  including  the  Welsh  and  Irish.  Their  represen- 
tatives were  the  Proctors,  of  which  at  Oxford  there  were  but 
two. 

One  University  gave  birth  to  others  by  migrations.  Owing 
to  various  causes  the  students  would  leave  the  town  from 
time  to  time.  Thus,  it  has  been  suggested,  Paris  gave  birth  to 
Oxford,  as  Oxford  probably  did  to  Cambridge.  The  origin  of 
this  last  University  is,  however,  so  obscure  that  it  is  difficult  to 
do  more  than  surmise.  The  position  of  the  town  was  impor- 
tant as  a  military  stronghold  commanding  the  famous  bridge 
which  was  the  key  of  access  to  East  Anglia.  Surrounded  by 
gloomy  fen  and  marsh  on  one  side  it  was  accessible  on  the 
West  from  most  parts  of  England,  and  was  not  far  from  some 
of  the  greatest  of  the  Benedictine  Houses  such  as  Ely  and 
Ramsey.  It  resembled  Oxford  in  not  having  any  large  religious 
houses  within  its  precincts.  The  Schools  there  are  implied  in  a 
charter  in  the  second  year  of  Henry  III  (1218).  If,  at  any 
earlier  time,  Oxford  scholars  migrated  thither,  this  was  follow- 
ing the  precedents  of  other  Universities  where  the  students 


242  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

and  Masters,  finding  the  townspeople  too  exacting,  or  the 
authorities  oppressive,  departed  and  set  up  a  place  for  their 
studies  elsewhere.  Thus  we  have  the  two  famous  migrations, 
in  1263  from  Oxford  to  Northampton,  and  in  1334  to  Stam- 
ford. This  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  show  how  loose  the  connec- 
tion between  the  towns  and  Universities  was;  for  the  same 
happened  at  Bologna. 

Permanence  was  given  to  the  Universities,  notably  Paris, 
Oxford,  and  Cambridge,  by  the  establishment  of  institutions 
for  the  accommodation  of  students.  The  collegiate  system, 
which  still  exists  in  the  English  universities,  was  not  part  of 
the  original  conception  but  came  into  being  during  the  thir- 
teenth century. 

When  a  city  was  invaded  by  hordes  of  students  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  the  natural  problem  was  to  find  them  lodg- 
ings. The  townsfolk  were  grasping,  and  the  young  men  riotous 
and  impecunious.  In  Paris  there  were  said  in  the  thirteenth 
century  to  be  as  many  as  thirty  thousand  students  at  a  time. 
Some  combined  to  hire  houses  in  common,  and  officials  were 
appointed  to  see  that  they  received  proper  treatment  as  to  the 
price  charged;  gradually  institutions  were  established  for  the 
use  of  poor  scholars,  where  they  could  be  lodged  and  fed,  and 
these  ultimately  became  colleges. 

The  thirteenth  century  also  witnessed  the  establishment  of 
colleges  in  both  English  Universities.  University  and  Balliol  at 
Oxford  both  belong  to  this  age,  as  does  Peterhouse  at  Cam- 
bridge, founded  by  Hugh  de  Balsham,  Bishop  of  Ely  in  1284. 
But  the  most  interesting  of  these  collegiate  establishments,  on 
account  of  its  plan  and  intention,  was  Merton  College,  Oxford, 
the  creation  of  Walter  de  Merton,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Roch- 
ester. In  about  1263  he  made  over  his  Manor  House  and  estate 
of  Maiden  in  Surrey  to  a  community  of  scholars.  It  was  in- 
tended mainly  for  the  benefit  of  his  family;  but  by  1270  his 
ideas  had  expanded,  land  had  been  acquired  in  Oxford  and  a 
regular  college  established.  It  was  to  be  a  secular  as  opposed  to 
the  monastic  establishments  then  rising  in  the  place,  and  none 
of  its  members  were  to  be  religious  men,  i.e.,  monks  or  friars. 


THE   FRIARS,  THE   SCHOOLMEN,  THE  UNIVERSITIES         243 

In  Walter's  statutes  there  are  all  the  features  of  a  modern 
college.  A  Warden,  who  is  to  be  elected  by  the  thirteen  Senior 
Fellows,  a  Society  of  Fellows,  who  are  to  continue  till  they 
obtain  a  benefice  of  sufficient  value,  estates  administered  in 
the  name  of  the  Warden,  Fellows  and  Scholars,  Scholars  of  an 
inferior  rank  portionari  (Postmasters).  It  is  remarkable  —  per- 
haps it  is  due  to  Walter  de  Merton's  foresight  —  that,  whereas 
several  colleges  in  the  University  of  Paris  disappeared  earlier, 
and  all  were  swept  away  by  the  French  Revolution,  all 
the  English  colleges  have  survived  and  still  continue  to 
flourish. 

The  Friars  established  themselves  in  the  Universities  and 
obtained  enormous  influence  but  not  without  much  opposition. 
Matthew  Paris,  the  English  historian,  notices  how  rapidly  the 
orders  degenerated,  more  in  twenty-four  years  than  the  older 
ones  in  four  centuries.  In  Paris  the  struggle  was  very  bitter 
against  the  Mendicants.  Headed  by  William  St.  Amour  the 
Masters  did  all  in  their  power  to  exclude  the  Friars  but  in  vain. 
They  were  regarded  as  too  useful  to  the  papal  cause  and  their 
right  to  teach  in  Paris  was  confirmed  by  the  Bull  of  Alexander 
IV,  Quasi  lignum  vita.  They  were  especially  unpopular  because 
of  their  zeal  for  proselytising  among  the  young,  as  well  as 
for  their   invasion   of  the  rights  and  duties  of  the   parochial 

clergy. 

The  most  permanent  contribution  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury was  the  Universities  of  Europe,  institutions  which  had  no 
real  counterpart  in  antiquity,  and  have  become  the  recognised 
centres  of  the  higher  education  of  today.  Amid  constant  changes 
the  system  that  is  common  to  these  institutions  has  persisted. 
Degrees,  Examinations,  Faculties,  Lectures  are  to  be  found 
throughout  the  world,  and  few  and  bold  indeed  are  those  who 
question  their  utility.  As  yet,  say  in  1300,  there  were  but  few 
Universities — three  in  France,  Paris,  Toulouse,  Montpelier — 
seven  in  Italy,  some,  like  Padua,  offshoots  from  Bologna,  two 
in  England — but  these  were  destined  to  have  a  growing  in- 
fluence on  thought  and  to  exercise  more  authority  of  the 
Church  itself.  But  here  it  is  necessary  to  leave  the  University 


244  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

in  its  infancy.  The  seed  had  been  sown  and  was  already  bearing 
fruit. 

AUTHORITIES 

The  "Works"  of  St.  Francis  are  in  the  Bibliotheca  Patristic  a  Medii  Aevi, 
Vol.  VI.  Father  Paschal  Robinson  published  in  1906  a  new  annotated 
translation  of  The  Writings  of  St.  Francis.  There  are  two  very  convenient 
English  editions  of  the  Sacrum  Commercium  and  the  Legend  of  the  three 
companions  published  by  J.  M.  Dent  (London);  also  an  English  translation 
of  Celano's  Lives  of  St.  Francis,  by  G.  Ferrars  Howell,  New  York.  A  volume 
in  Everyman's  Library  contains  translations  of  The  Little  Flowers,  The  Life 
of  St.  Francis  (by  St.  Bonaventura),  and  the  Mirror  of  Perfection.  The 
works  of  Paul  Sabatier  I  have  consulted  are  the  Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
in  English  and  French;  the  Opuscules  Critiques  et  Historiques,  I,  II;  his 
edition  of  the  Speculum  and  his  Collections  d' 'etudes  et  des  documents,  IV.  I 
have  used  G.  G.  Coulton's  valuable  lectures,  Christ,  St.  Francis,  and  Today. 
Also  Father  Cuthbert's  The  Romanticism  of  St.  Francis.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  add  that  the  literature  on  the  subject  is  immense;  see  P.  Robinson's  Short 
Introduction  to  Franciscan  Literature  (1907),  also  his  article  "Francis  of 
Assisi"  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia.  A  Guide  to  Franciscan  Studies,  by 
A.  G.  Little,  is  valuable. 

For  the  study  of  the  Scholastics  the  reader  is  referred  to  such  books  as 
the  two  volumes  of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquinas,  by  R.  B.  Vaughan,  The  History 
of  Religions,  Vol.  II,  by  G.  F.  Moore,  and  to  the  exhaustive  article  on  St. 
Thomas  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia. 

Two  standard  books  in  English  on  the  Universities  of  Europe  are  Hastings 
Rashdall,  The  Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  Introduction 
to  J.  Bass  Mullinger's  History  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  to  1535. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN 

Italian  and  German  antagonism  —  The  Papacy  anti-national  —  Matilda's  bequest  — 
Guelfs  and  Ghibellines  —  The  Sicilies  —  Papal  claims  —  German  arrogance  — 
Frederic  Barbarossa  —  Hadrian  IV  —  Rome  under  interdict  —  Character  of 
Hadrian  —  Alexander  III  —  The  Lombard  League  —  Death  of  Frederic  I  — 
Henry  VI  marries  Constance  —  Innocent  III  —  Frederic  II  the  ward  of  the 
Papacy  —  Philip  and  Otto  —  Frederic  II  —  Honorius  III  —  Gregory  IX  — 
Frederic  IPs  Crusade  —  Nine  years'  peace  between  Frederic  and  the  Papacy  — 
Frederic's  victories  in  Lombardy  —  Second  excommunication  —  Innocent  IV  — 
Frederic  deposed  at  Lyons  —  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines  in  Lombardy  —  Manfred  — 
Interregnum  in  the  Empire  —  The  French  popes  —  Charles  of  Anjou  —  Charles 
in  Rome  —  Defeat  of  Manfred  at  Benevento  —  Battle  of  Tagliacozzo  —  Sicilian 
Vespers  —  Wanderings  of  the  Popes  —  Failure  of  the  Hohenstaufens  —  France 
and  the  Popes  —  Former  greatness  of  the  Emperor  —  German  resentment  against 
Italy  —  Teutonic  Order  —  Collapse  of  Latin  Christianity  in  the  East  —  England 
alienated  —  Not  a  war  of  religion  between  Popes  and  Hohenstaufens  —  Ruin  of 
Sicily. 

As  was  shown  in  the  account  of  the  Crusades  there  are  in 
Europe  impulses  which  manifest  themselves  in  different  forms 
throughout  successive  ages,  and  yet  are  fundamentally  the 
same.  One  of  these  is  the  latent  hostility  between  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Italy  and  the  Teutonic  races  beyond  the  Alps.  From  the 
earliest  days  the  Germanic  peoples  have  been  trying  to  gain 
an  access  to  the  Mediterranean  by  occupying  the  peninsula, 
and  have  failed  because  of  their  inability  to  understand  the 
genius  of  the  Italians.  In  addition  to  this  the  Teutons  have  had 
to  cope  with  the  inextinguishable  memory  of  the  Romans  that 
their  city  was,  and  ought  still  to  be,  the  capital  of  the  world. 
Nor  was  it  the  Papacy  alone  in  the  Middle  Ages  which  upheld 
this  idea.  The  people  desired  the  preeminence  of  their  city  as 
keenly  as  the  clergy.  Though  Rome  might  be  poor,  turbulent, 
uncivilized,  at  times  almost  forsaken,  though  her  armies  were 
scattered  like  chaff  by  the  iron  troops  of  the  north,  the  Roman 
still  clung  to  the  idea  that  he  was  the  natural  master  of  the 
world.  A  German  might  be  the  greatest  potentate  in  Europe, 

24s 


246  INTRODUCTION  TO   HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

he  might  be  called  Caesar  and  Augustus,  he  might  be  in  theory 
regarded  as  the  true  God-given  ruler  of  Christendom,  but  he 
was  never  able  to  make  Rome  for  any  long  period  even  a  place 
of  residence.  Almost  every  imperial  coronation  was  the  occasion 
of  a  serious  riot,  and  the  new  Augustus  had  to  leave  the  city 
with  all  speed.  The  climate  also  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  Ro- 
mans; for  however  vast  and  victorious  a  German  force  might  be, 
it  was  sure  to  succumb  before  the  fatal  fevers  of  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Rome. 

The  Papacy  represented  the  national  feelings  of  the  Romans 
in  its  antagonism  to  any  Teutonic  people  established  in  Italy. 
It  had  eagerly  embraced  the  help  of  the  Byzantines  against 
the  Ostrogoths  in  the  sixth  century,  and  uniformly  stood  by 
the  Empire  against  the  Lombards  in  the  seventh.  In  the 
eighth  century  the  Popes  had  called  in  the  Franks  because  the 
Byzantines  could  not  defend  them  against  the  Lombards  and 
had  taken  part  in  restoring  the  Empire  of  the  West  by  crown- 
ing Charles.  In  the  tenth  century  the  three  Ottos  had  tried  to 
restore  the  dignity  of  the  Empire,  and  in  the  eleventh,  the 
Franconian  dynasty  had  purified  the  Papacy  by  putting  in 
good  and  devout  German  popes  only  to  find  themselves  en- 
gaged in  the  furious  struggle  with  Henry  IV  and  Henry  V 
about  investitures.  When  this  had  been  settled  by  a  not  un- 
reasonable compromise,  the  Empire  made  a  bold  bid  for  su- 
premacy not  only  in  Germany  and  Italy  but  in  the  Western 
world. 

In  the  desperate  struggle  which  ensued,  despite  the  pious 
admonitions  of  the  successive  pontiffs  and  the  fact  that  so  to 
speak  the  air  thundered  and  their  arrows,  in  the  form  of  ex- 
communications, went  abroad,  the  aim  of  both  parties  was 
secular  and  the  success  of  the  papal  policy  was  mainly  due  to 
its  being  on  the  side  of  Italian  independence. 

Since  the  time  of  Charles  the  Great  northern  Italy  had  been 
mainly  divided  into  imperial  and  papal  territories.  By  the  do- 
nation of  Pippin  the  Popes  claimed  all  south  of  a  line  drawn 
from  Luna  to  Monte  Salice.  But  this  claim  was  not  admitted, 
perhaps  not  even  seriously  made,  the  fact  being  that  generally 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        247 

neither  the  papal,  nor  even  the  imperial  suzerainty  over  north- 
ern Italy  was  effective.  After  their  expeditions  into  Italy  the 
different  Emperors  left  their  territories  entrusted  to  vassals 
who  governed  them  almost  independently. 

The  greatest  of  the  imperial  feudatories  in  the  eleventh 
century  were  the  counts  of  Tuscany,  represented  during  the 
long  struggle  over  Investitures,  by  the  famous  Countess  Ma- 
tilda, the  supporter  of  the  Papacy  against  the  Empire.  At  her 
death  in  11 15  she  bequeathed  her  dominions  to  the  Pope;  and 
these,  known  as  the  terra  Mathildis,  became  a  fertile  cause  of 
dispute. 

The  twelfth  century  witnessed  the  rise  of  numbers  of  cities, 
all  anxious  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Emperor  and  his  feudal 
nobles,  and  prepared  to  put  up  a  stubborn  resistance  in  sup- 
port of  their  liberties.  Thus  there  arose  two  parties  in  Italy,  the 
papal  and  the  imperial,  known  respectively  as  Guelf  and  Ghib- 
elline.  Each  supported  the  divine  authority  exercised  by  its 
leader,  the  Guelf  maintaining  that  God  had  set  Pope  over 
Emperor,  and  the  Ghibelline  the  opposite.  But  under  claims 
supported  by  the  Scripture  and  the  tradition  of  the  Church, 
principles  profoundly  political  were  involved;  and  the  contest 
was  actually  one  between  native  and  Germanic  influence  in 
Italy.  The  papal  party  was  weak  in  material  force ;  for  the  Italian 
was  no  match  for  the  German  as  a  soldier.  On  the  other  hand 
the  Empire  was  disunited,  many  of  its  most  powerful  princes 
were  ecclesiastics,  and  no  German  army  could  long  endure  the 
climate  of  Italy. 

Southern  Italy  and  Sicily  presented  a  different  problem. 
It  had  long  been  the  prey  of  some  foreign  power.  In  the  eighth 
century  the  Byzantines  and  Lombards  held  it,  then  the  Sara- 
cens occupied  the  land,  finally  the  Normans  overshadowed 
both  Saracens  and  Byzantines.  The  influence  of  the  Normans 
was  decisive  in  the  struggle  about  investitures,  and  the  Popes 
realised  that  their  security  depended  greatly  on  who  occupied 
the  lands  south  of  Rome.  From  henceforward  it  became  a 
matter  of  vital  interest  what  power  ruled  in  the  south.  The 
kingdom  of  the  two  Sicilies,  as  it  was  called,  became  the  pivot 


248  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

of  papal  policy  and  the  motive  which  led  the  Popes  to  compass 
the  ruin  of  the  house  of  Frederic  II  in  the  thirteenth  century 
was  identical  with  that  which  made  Pius  IX  in  the  nineteenth 
century  regard  Garibaldi  as  his  most  dreaded  enemy.  To  have 
Lombardy  and  the  South  in  the  same  strong  hand  was  to  en- 
danger the  crushing  of  the  States  of  the  Church  between  the 
upper  and  the  nether  millstone. 

Another  factor  in  the  struggle  was  the  almost  incredible 
claim  for  supremacy  put  forth  by  the  Popes  during  the  period. 
They  regarded  themselves  as  set  over  the  nations  "to  pull 
down  and  to  plant. "  Kings  were  their  subjects,  their  vassals. 
Their  interdicts  could  paralyse  a  country.  A  threat  of  excom- 
munication could  bring  the  most  powerful  rulers  of  Europe 
to  their  knees.  Intoxicated  with  power,  they  made  constantly 
increasing  demands  and  tried  the  patience,  not  merely  of  sov- 
ereigns, but  of  the  people  and  the  very  clergy  of  lands  which 
they  seemed  to  regard  almost  as  the  private  property  of  the 
Papacy.  They  were  endangering  their  spiritual  influence  with 
a  monarch  like  Louis  IX,  who  became  a  canonized  saint,  and 
prelates  like  the  English  Bishop,  Robert  Grosseteste  of  Lin- 
coln, whose  learning  and  piety  were  the  admiration  of  Chris- 
tendom. 

The  German  Caesars  were  at  least  equals  of  the  Popes  in 
arrogance,  and  in  their  desire  to  magnify  their  office.  They 
too  strove  for  world  domination,  and  asserted  themselves  in 
a  way  peculiarly  calculated  to  irritate  the  Romans,  proud  of 
their  ancient  glories,  and  the  north  Italians,  conscious  of  their 
rapidly  developing  civilization.  A  single  example  will  illustrate 
this.  When  Frederic  Barbarossa  entered  Rome  to  be  crowned 
Emperor  the  envoys  of  the  City  addressed  him  in  a  pompous 
speech  of  welcome  extolling  the  glories  of  Rome  as  the  mistress 
of  the  world.  His  reply  was  brutal  and  insolent  in  the  extreme. 
"Wilt  thou  know,"  he  said,  "where  the  ancient  glory  of  thy 
Rome,  the  dignified  severity  of  the  Senate,  the  tactics  of  the 
camp  and  invincible  military  courage  have  gone?  All  are  found 
among  us  Germans:  all  have  been  transmitted  to  us  with  the 
Empire    .    .    .   thou    thyself   art   still  my  subject,   I   am  the 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        249 

rightful  owner.  Who  dares  to  snatch  the  club  from  Hercules? 
Perhaps  the  Sicilian  on  whom  thou  placest  thine  hopes.  Let 
the  past  teach  him  for  the  arm  of  the  German  is  not  yet  dis- 
abled. .  .  .  Wherefore  should  I  not  defend  the  seat  of  my 
empire,  whose  boundaries  I  am  determined  to  restore.  That  is 
shown  by  Denmark,  which  has  just  been  subjugated.  .  .  ." 
These  words  are  put  into  Frederic's  mouth  by  the  German  his- 
torian Otto  of  Freising.  They  reveal  the  German  spirit  which 
made  the  presence  of  the  nation  in  Italy  insupportable  even 
when  they  came  as  deliverers;  but  there  is  in  them  that  note 
of  confidence  in  worldly  power,  which  the  old  Greeks  con- 
sidered to  be  the  sure  precursor  of  calamity.  The  struggle  be- 
tween the  house  of  Barbarossa  and  the  Papacy  was  to  result, 
first  in  the  complete  ruin  of  that  powerful  dynasty,  and  then 
in  the  shame  and  degradation  of  Boniface  VIII,  the  proudest 
of  the   medieval   Popes. 

Frederic  Barbarossa  succeeded  his  uncle  Conrad  III  in 
1 1 52, 1  when  St.  Bernard's  friend  Eugenius  III  was  Pope.  The 
two  pontiffs  with  whom  he  was  brought  into  contact  were 
Hadrian  IV  (11 54-1 159)  and  Alexander  III  (1159-1181).  It 
is  noteworthy  that  both  of  them  in  their  contests  with  the 
most  powerful  of  the  medieval  Emperors  met  with  little  or  no 
support  from  the  Roman  people,  and  were  compelled  to  spend 
most  of  their  time  away  from  the  City.  The  dream  of  a  Roman 
Republic  with  the  Pope  confined  to  the  spiritual  duties  of  his 
office  kept  the  people  in  a  ferment;  and,  despite  their  hatred 
of  the  Germans,  prevented  any  cooperation  between  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  powers.  As  a  rule  the  combatants  were  a 
Pope  in  exile  and  a  German  national  hero  supported  by  his 
people,  of  whose  cause  he  was  regarded  as  the  champion. 

The  first  pontiff  with  whom  Frederic  came  into  contact  was 
Hadrian  IV,  the  only  Englishman  who  was  ever  Pope,  a  man 
of  remarkable  force  of  character.  The  popular  story  is  that 
as  Nicolas  Breakspear,  he  had  sought  in  vain  for  admission  or 
alms   at  the  gate  of  the   aristocratic  Abbey  of  St.   Albans. 

1  Conrad  III  was  the  first  of  the  Swabian  dynasty,  but  he  was  never  crowned 
Emperor. 


250  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

William  of  Newbury  says  he  was  the  son  of  a  priest.  Anyhow 
he  left  his  home  and  went  as  a  poor  student  to  France  and  at 
last  became  prior  of  St.  Rufus  near  Aries.  Eugenius  III  made 
him  cardinal-bishop  of  Albano,  and  sent  him  on  a  diplomatic 
mission  to  Norway  and  on  his  return  he  was  unanimously 
elected  Pope  December  5,  11 54.  Handsome,  cultured,  and 
eloquent,  this  humble  Englishman  was  a  match  both  for  the 
turbulent  Romans  and  the  haughty  German.1 

Hadrian  IV  found  the  city  leagued  against  him,  under  the 
influence  of  Arnold  of  Brescia,  the  Senate  unwilling  to  recog- 
nise his  title,  himself  confined  to  St.  Peter's  and  the  Leonine 
City,  and  his  only  earthly  hope  the  thought  that  Frederic  I, 
who  was  in  Italy,  might  come  to  his  rescue.  With  character- 
istic courage  he  struck  the  first  blow  by  demanding  the  ex- 
pulsion of  Arnold  of  Brescia.  At  the  first  sign  of  contumacy  on 
the  part  of  the  Romans,  he  laid  the  City  under  an  interdict, 
an  unprecedented  act  of  severity.  To  stop  all  religious  services 
at  Rome  threatened  the  citizens  not  only  with  the  loss  of  happi- 
ness in  heaven  but  with  money  on  earth;  for  the  flood  of  pil- 
grims would  soon  be  dried  up.  On  the  fourth  day  of  Holy 
Week  the  people  rose  in  an  uproar  against  the  Senators  and 
forced  them  humbly  to  sue  for  peace.  They  promised  to  banish 
Arnold,  and  the  Pope  was  conducted  in  triumph  to  the  Lateran 
in  time  for  the  Easter  celebrations.  Frederic  now  advanced  on 
Rome  to  receive  coronation  as  Emperor.  Hadrian  came  to 
meet  him,  demanding  the  surrender  of  Arnold  of  Brescia  whom 
Frederic  readily  gave  up  to  papal  vengeance.  He  was  less  com- 
pliant as  to  the  ceremony  which  required  the  Emperor  elect  to 
hold  the  Pope's  stirrup  and  walk  beside  his  horse.  On  this 
point  Hadrian  was  inflexible  and  Frederic  was  obliged  to  yield. 
According  to  the  German  historians  he  did  so  with  very  bad 
grace  and  as  has  been  shown,  he  certainly  offended  the  civil 
authorities  of  Rome  by  his  insolent  reply  to  their  address. 

The  coronation  of  Frederic  I  at  Rome,  June  18,  1 1 55,  was 
typical  of  the  fate  of  his  house.  The  Romans  shut  the  gates  and 

1  It  is  possible  that  Hadrian  IV's  connection  with  St.  Albans  in  England  was  sur- 
mised by  those  who  knew  him  as  Cardinal  of  Albano. 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        25 1 

he  could  only  occupy  the  Leonine  City  and  be  crowned  in  St. 
Peter's,  and  could  not  even  visit  the  Lateran  basilica.  The 
coronation  banquet  was  interrupted  by  an  attack  of  the  Romans 
on  the  German  army.  After  a  day's  fierce  fighting  the  imperial 
forces  indulged  in  a  savage  massacre  in  which  a  thousand 
perished.  The  newly  made  Emperor  and  his  army  hastily  re- 
treated, taking  with  him  the  Pope  and  the  cardinals.  In  July 
Frederic  took  leave  of  Hadrian  IV  at  Tivoli  and  returned  to 
Germany  showing  his  fury  to  Italy  by  laying  Spoleto  in 
ashes. 

Hadrian  IV  died  at  Anagni  on  September  1,  11 59.  He  had 
never  been  able  to  return  to  Rome  after  Frederic's  coronation. 
The  one  English  Pope  is  a  good  example  of  the  democratic  spirit 
of  the  medieval  Church,  which  recognised  ability,  wherever 
found,  and  opened  its  highest  offices  to  merit.  Of  humble 
origin  and  a  foreigner,  he  had  risen  by  his  own  efforts  to  the 
highest  position  in  the  Western  world.  With  no  powerful 
relatives  to  support  him,  with  the  Roman  people  leagued 
against  him,  he  held  his  position  against  the  most  powerful 
Emperor  since  Charles  the  Great.  When  Frederic  in  a  letter 
placed  his  name  before  that  of  Hadrian,  the  Pope  plainly  told 
him,  "In  doing  so  you  have  incurred  a  character  for  insolence, 
not  to  say  of  arrogance."  No  man,  however,  was  under  less 
delusion  about  the  Papacy  than  Hadrian.  As  he  told  his  friend 
and  fellow  countryman  John  of  Salisbury,  it  was  the  most 
miserable  position  on  earth.  "Servant  of  servants"  is  the  true 
title  for  a  Pope,  if  he  were  as  rich  as  Croesus  when  elected,  is 
sure  soon  to  be  poor  and  in  debt,  the  slave  of  the  boundless 
avarice  of  the  Romans. 

Roland  Bandinelli,  a  Siennese,  succeeded  Hadrian  IV,  and 
took  the  title  of  Alexander  III.  This  great  man  held  the  See 
for  twenty-two  years,  till  1181,  and  during  his  troubled  pon- 
tificate supported  the  independence  of  the  Italian  cities  against 
the  Emperor.  Frederic,  having  the  support  of  a  German  party 
among  the  cardinals,  resorted  to  the  imperial  practice  of  set- 
ting up  anti-popes.  On  March  2,  1160,  Alexander  III  excom- 
municated the  Emperor;  and  in  1161  the  Pope  was  compelled 


252  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  take  refuge  in  France.  The  despotic  rule  of  the  Emperor 
and  his  representative  alienated  the  Italians,  and  it  is  significant 
that  two  of  the  imperial  vicars  were  German  Archbishops, 
Rainald  von  Darsal  of  Cologne,  the  Imperial  Chancellor  of 
Italy,  and  Christian  of  Mainz,  the  last  named  a  gallant  li- 
centious prince,  who,  clad  in  shining  armour,  mace  in  hand, 
smote  down  his  enemies,  and  solaced  himself  in  peace  with  the 
society  of  fair  ladies.  The  Popes  of  the  twelfth  century  had 
neither  time  nor  inclination  for  such  princely  pleasures,  and 
maintained  a  high  standard  of  clerical  propriety. 

Alexander   III    remained    in    France   from    1162   to    1 165. 
There  the  fugitive  Pope  was  received  with  the  highest  respect. 
Louis  VII  and  Henry  II  of  England,  rivals  in  everything,  vied 
to  do  him  honour.  In  1163  the  Pope  held  a  great  council  at 
Tours,  at  which  17  cardinals,  124  bishops  and  440  abbots  were 
present,  and  his  title  was  unanimously  asserted  by  the  ex- 
communication of  the  Anti-pope  and   all  his  adherents.   But 
when    across   the   Alps   Alexander   III    found    more   tangible 
support.  The  Archbishop  of  Reims  raised   immense  sums   of 
money  for  his  necessities,  and  the  Pope  could  offer  the  re- 
bellious Romans  the  only  argument  which   could   appeal  to 
them.  With  the  help  of  William  I,  King  of  Sicily,  he  was  able 
to  return  to  Rome,  disgusted  by  the  brutality  of  the  Germans, 
under  the  Archbishop   of  Mainz;   and   on   St.   Cecilia's  day 
(November  23),  1165,  the  Pope  was  received  with  enthusiasm 
by  Senate  and  people. 

But  Frederic  I's  descent  into  Italy  in  1166-1167  again 
rendered  the  position  of  Alexander  III  untenable.  The  Roman 
army  was  utterly  defeated  by  the  Germans  in  May,  1167;  and 
in  July  the  Leonine  City  was  taken  and  St.  Peter's  entered  by 
the  brutal  soldiery  of  the  Emperor.  The  Pope  escaped  in  the 
disguise  of  a  pilgrim;  Frederic  entered  into  a  treaty  with  the 
Romans,  and  installed  the  Anti-pope.  It  seemed  as  though  the 
German  cause  in  Italy  had  triumphed.  But  as  so  often  happened 
pestilence  came  to  save  the  city  and  Frederic  with  the  rem- 
nants of  his  fever-stricken  army  retired  to  Germany,  leaving 
the  city  in  August,  1167. 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        253 

A  new  factor  now  made  itself  felt.  Lombardy  bore  the 
heavy  yoke  of  Germany  with  impatience.  Its  cities  were  in- 
creasing in  wealth  and  prosperity.  Their  fierce  independence, 
and,  above  all,  their  democratic  ideals,  were  antagonistic  to 
the  aristocratic  prejudices  of  the  German  nation.  Alexander 
III  threw  in  his  lot  with  the  Lombard  League  and  his  name  is 
still  perpetuated  in  a  city  built  at  this  time  as  a  fortress  against 
Frederic.  On  May  29,  1176,  the  Emperor  was  utterly  defeated 
at  Legnano,  where  the  independence  of  Lombardy  was  won. 

Alexander  III  died  in  1181.  Despite  the  fact  that  he  had 
spent  most  of  his  pontificate  of  twenty-two  years  as  an  exile 
from  Rome,  he  ranks  among  the  greatest  of  the  Popes.  Opposed 
throughout  by  the  Roman  Republic  and  the  Emperor,  he  held 
his  own  and  maintained  the  dignity  of  his  office.  In  one  respect 
he  encountered  even  greater  difficulties  than  Gregory  VII 
and  his  successors.  They  could  at  least  rely  on  the  support  of 
some  of  the  great  ecclesiastical  feudatories  of  the  Empire, 
whereas  Frederic  I  and  his  house  had  all  Germany  behind  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  Alexander  Ill's  time  a  new  Italian 
feeling  had  been  aroused  by  the  rise  of  the  city  states  and  these 
supported  the  Pope  as  standing  for  Italy.  The  one  exception 
was  Rome,  which  despite  its  high  sounding  pretensions  dis- 
played few  virtues  worthy  of  its  ancient  fame. 

The  Popes  from  Alexander  III  (d.  1181)  and  the  accession 
of  Innocent  III  (1198)  had  but  short  reigns,  and  the  period  is 
marked  by  the  growth  of  the  power  of  the  house  of  Hohen- 
staufen.  Frederic  Barbarossa  led  an  immense  army  to  Pales- 
tine through  Asia  Minor.  Had  he  succeeded  in  this  crusade, 
he  would  have  perhaps  dominated  the  Western  world;  but  he 
lost  his  life  drowned  in  a  river  on  June  10,  1190,  and  is  still 
regarded  as  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  German  nation. 

The  marriage  of  his  son  Henry  VI  increased  the  power  of 
the  dynasty.  The  Kingdom  of  Sicily,  which  included  southern 
Italy,  had  been  for  a  century  the  most  civilized  and  best 
governed  in  the  world.  The  line  of  Norman  sovereigns  who  had 
ruled  a  very  mixed  population  with  singular  wisdom,  ceased 
with  William  II,  leaving  his  aunt  Constance  as  his  sole  heiress. 


254  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Her  kingdom  was  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See,  and  it  was  all  important 
to  the  Pope  that  it  should  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  German 
Emperor.  Nevertheless  William  II  and  Frederic  Barbarossa 
were  agreed  that  Henry,  the  son  of  the  Emperor,  should  marry 
Constance  and  receive  her  splendid  inheritance.  The  marriage 
took  place  in  1186;  and  by  it  Henry  VI  became  Emperor  and 
King  of  Sicily. 

Henry  VI's  marriage  with  Constance  was  the  cause  of  his 
house  rising  to  an  unprecedented  pitch  of  glory,  and  of  its  ul- 
timate ruin.  The  acquisition  of  Sicily  made  the  Empire   all 
powerful  in  Europe  and  gave  it  a  prospect  of  gaining  the  mas- 
tery of  the  East  and  its  commerce.  Its  supremacy  meant  that 
the  Papacy  would  be  reduced  to  the  political  insignificance  of 
a  German  archbishopric,  and  that  the  most  the  Pope  could  hope 
to  be  was  the  principal  feudal  prince  in  the  Empire.  It  was 
therefore  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  the  Popes  to  prevent 
such  a  catastrophe,  as  they  were  determined  never  to  go  back 
to  the  position  from  which  Hildebrand  and  his  friends  had 
freed  them.  In  Henry  VI  was  soon  revealed  an  able  and  am- 
bitious ruler,  and  a  ruthless  tyrant,  nor  was  there  a  pope  of 
commanding  influence  to  resist  him.  It  seemed  as  though  the 
triumph  of  the  Empire  was  assured  and  that  Italy  would  soon 
become  a  German  province.  The  Sicilians  set  up  Tancred,  an 
illegitimate  scion  of  the  Norman  house,  but  he  died  in  1194. 
Henry    then    crushed    the    Sicilians    with    merciless    severity, 
almost  exterminated  the  royal  house  and  devastated  the  land. 
He  died,  however,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two,  in  September,  1197, 
leaving    a    young    child,    destined    to    become    the    Emperor 
Frederic  II,  as  his  heir  under  the  guardianship  of  his  mother 
Constance.   The    Pope,    Celestine    III,  died  in    the    following 
January.  The  year  1198  was  notable  for  the  election  of  a  car- 
dinal of  noble  birth,  and  in  the  full  vigour  of  manhood.  Lothar, 
who  took  the  title  of  Innocent  III,  was  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Conti  and  was  only  thirty-seven  when  he  was  unanimously 
selected  for  the  Papal  throne.  Young,  rich,  learned  in  the  law, 
with  a  high  reputation  for  sanctity,  he  entered  upon  a  reign 
of  eighteen  years  with  the  fairest  prospects  and  was  destined 


THE   PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        255 

to  prove  himself  in  character  and  ability  one  of  the  greatest 
Pontiffs  in  history. 

Henry  VI  had  committed  the  care  of  his  son  Frederic  to 
the  protection  of  Celestine  III,  to  whom  he  owed  feudal 
homage  for  his  kingdom  of  Sicily  and  its  Italian  possessions. 
But  the  Empire  was  not  hereditary,  and  the  German  princes 
elected  Philip  of  Swabia,  the  brother  of  the  late  Emperor.  In 
the  same  year  Constance  died,  leaving  Frederic  to  the  care  of 
Innocent  III.  Thus  the  Pope  became  the  support  of  the  direct 
line  of  the  Hohenstaufens  against  any  possible  usurpation  on 
the  part  of  the  boy's  uncle,  the  newly  elected  Emperor  Philip. 
Already,  however,  Philip  was  an  enemy  to  the  Papacy  owing 
to  his  determination  to  uphold  his  brother's  rights  in  Northern 
Italy  against  the  Tuscan  league  formed  with  the  support  of 
the  Pope  in  1197,  against  Henry  VI.  Innocent  III  from  the  day 
of  his  accession  had  been  labouring  to  restore  the  territory  of 
the  Roman  See  and  to  claim  the  lands  which  Matilda  of 
Tuscany  had  bequeathed  to  it. 

Philip  and  the  Hohenstaufens  had  other  enemies  besides 
the  Pope  and  the  Guelf  cities  of  Italy.  England  and  France 
were  alarmed  at  the  growing  strength  of  the  House  and  sup- 
ported a  rival  candidate  for  the  Empire  in  Otto,  the  son  of 
Henry  "the  Lion,"  whose  mother  was  Matilda,  daughter  of 
King  Henry  II  of  England.  A  party  in  Germany  supported 
Otto  against  Philip,  and  proclaimed  him  King  of  the  Romans. 
Innocent  III  at  once  espoused  the  cause  of  Otto  IV,  whose 
family  were  hereditary  foes  of  the  Hohenstaufens,  and  con- 
spicuous for  their  devotion  to  the  Papacy. 

Germany  thus  became  the  scene  of  a  long  civil  war  be- 
tween the  two  claimants  and  Philip  proved  decidedly  the 
stronger.  At  last  Innocent  III  was  forced  to  abandon  Otto, 
and  recognise  Philip,  who,  however,  was  assassinated  at  Bam- 
berg on  June  21,  1208,  by  Otto  of  Wittelsbach.  The  Pope 
immediately  acknowledged  Otto  IV;  and  in  1209  he  was 
crowned  at  Rome  as  Emperor. 

It  soon  became  manifest  that  no  emperor  could  be  in 
Italy   and   remain   on   friendly  terms   with   the    Roman   See. 


256'  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Otto  IV  was  deposed  and  excommunicated,  and  Frederic  II 
was  summoned  from  Sicily  to  Germany;  and  with  the  consent 
of  Innocent  III,  was  elected  King  of  the  Romans  in  December, 
1212.  In  1214  Otto  IV,  in  alliance  with  King  John  of  England, 
was  utterly  defeated  by  the  French  King  Philip  Augustus  at 
Bovines;  and  on  July  25,  121 5,  Frederic  II  was  crowned  King 
at  Aachen.  Innocent  III  died  in  June,  1216. 

The  youth  who  had  now  recovered  the  inheritance  of  his 
father  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  figures  in  history.  A 
statesman  and  a  soldier,  brilliant  in  all  he  undertook,  a  linguist, 
a  scholar  and  a  poet,  he  is  a  fit  representative  of  German  royalty 
in  a  century  of  great  men.  But  his  favourite  home  was  his 
native  Sicily,  from  whence  he  legislated,  founded  schools  of 
learning,  and  surrounded  himself  with  the  most  polished  court 
of  his  age.  As  one  who  had  been  a  ward  of  the  Holy  See,  Fred- 
eric II  professed  unbounded  loyalty  to  the  Church,  and  his 
laws,  wise  and  humane  and  far  in  advance  of  his  age  in  all  other 
respects,  were  ruthless  against  heresy.  Yet  he  was  destined  to 
engage  in  a  long  struggle  with  the  Papacy  which  was  to  end, 
not  only  in  the  utter  ruin  of  his  house,  but  of  the  influence  of 
the  Germanic  Roman  Empire  and  ultimately  in  that  of  the 
Papacy  which  had  brought  low  the  family  of  Hohenstaufen. 

In  a  sense  the  struggle  was  inevitable.  The  immense 
claims  of  the  Popes  to  world  domination  necessitated  absolute 
freedom  from  secular  control  and  they  were  being  hemmed  in 
as  the  German  power  in  Lombardy  and  Sicily  increased  under 
the  able  rule  of  Frederic  II.  Thus  the  Popes,  though  unable 
to  hold  their  own  in  their  own  city,  undertook  to  break  the 
power  of  the  Emperor.  In  one  respect,  however,  the  success 
of  the  Roman  See  was  not  like  that  attained  in  the  days  of 
Gregory  VII;  and  the  war  was  less  one  of  excommunications 
and  interdicts  than  of  skilful  political  combinations. 

Honorius  III,  the  successor  of  Innocent  III,  was  an  aged 
man  who  pursued  a  conciliatory  and  cautious  policy  towards 
Frederic,  but  a  plausible  excuse  was  found  for  compassing  the 
ruin  of  the  Emperor,  or,  at  least,  for  so  far  weakening  his 
position  at  home  as  to  make  him  no  longer  a  danger  to  the 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        257 

Papal  authority.  There  was  an  imperative  need  for  a  crusade 
in  Egypt  or  Palestine,  if  the  Christians  were  to  keep  any  foot- 
ing in  the  Holy  Land.  But  the  days  of  Peter  the  Hermit  were 
long  gone  by,  and  the  princes  of  Europe  preferred  to  talk 
about  a  Crusade  than  to  risk  their  dominions  in  undertaking 
the  enterprise.  Frederic,  however,  had  been  made  to  feel  that 
he  was  under  a  deep  obligation  to  the  Roman  Church  for 
allowing  him  to  ascend  the  imperial  throne,  and  in  token  of 
his  gratitude  he  had  taken  the  cross  and  pledged  himself  to 
go  to  Palestine.  But  when  it  came  to  fulfilling  his  obligation 
he  found  it  impossible  to  go.  In  his  German  and  Sicilian  do- 
minions he  had  all  he  could  do  to  maintain  his  position.  Ho- 
norius  III  remonstrated  at  the  delay,  but  though  he  threatened 
Frederic  he  did  nothing,  and  perhaps  in  his  heart  realised  that 
the  Emperor  was  doing  his  best  to  arrange  for  the  expedition, 
but  was  hindered  by  his  troubles  in  Italy.  Still  before  this 
Pope's  death  the  breach  was  manifestly  widening.  There  were 
disputes  about  episcopal  investiture  in  Sicily;  and  Frederic  II, 
through  his  wife  Iolanthe,  had  laid  claim  to  the  title  of  King  of 
Jerusalem,  and  her  father,  John  de  Brienne,  had  complained  to 
the  Pope  and  had  been  received  with  favour.  All  was  ready  for 
the  explosion  when  Honorius  III  died  on  March  18,  1227,  and 
was  succeeded  on  the  following  day  by  the  Cardinal-bishop  of 
Ostia,  Ugolino,  as  Gregory  IX. 

Great  disappointment  was  felt  in  some  quarters  that  so 
aged  a  man  had  been  chosen  at  this  crisis.  Gregory  IX  must 
have  been  over  eighty  when  elected.  But  throughout  his  pon- 
tificate of  fourteen  years  he  showed  no  signs  of  senility,  but 
proved  a  most  active,,  able  and  vindictive  enemy  of  the  Emperor. 

Gregory  IX  at  once  summoned  the  princes  of  Europe  to  a 
Crusade  and  Frederic  II  actually  started  in  September,  1226; 
but  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  he  put  back  and  landed  at 
Otranto.  Transported  with  fury  the  Pope  excommunicated 
the  Emperor.  Nearly  a  year  of  manifestos  from  both  sides 
followed;  Frederic  succeeded  in  winning  over  the  Romans  who 
drove  Gregory  out  of  Rome.  At  last,  on  June  28,  1228,  the 
Emperor  started  amid  the  curses  of  the  Church  to  the  Holy 


258  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Land.  His  success  was  very  remarkable.  Though  the  church- 
men regarded  him  as  an  excommunicated  person,  and  the 
military  orders  refused  to  act  under  his  command,  Frederic 
II's  unrivalled  knowledge  of  the  Mohammedans  enabled  him 
to  turn  the  situation  to  his  advantage  and  secure  Jerusalem 
to  the  Christians  by  treaty  with  the  Sultan  Kameel  of  Egypt. 
This  only  increased  the  rage  of  the  papal  party,  and  Gregory 
IX  busily  stirred  up  revolts  against  Frederic  in  Germany, 
Apulia  and  throughout  his  dominions.  Frederic  returned  to 
Italy  in  1229,  and  sent  an  embassy  to  the  Pope,  of  whom 
Herman  of  Salza,  Master  of  the  Teutonic  order,  was  one. 
The  only  result  was  a  second  excommunication  in  which  the 
name  of  the  Emperor  was  coupled  with  the  Arnoldists,  Cathari, 
and  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  the  most  detested  heretics  of  the 

age. 

The  value  of  the  Friars  to  the  Papacy  during  its  struggle 
with  Frederic  II  was  conspicuous.  They  became  a  veritable 
army  of  preachers  denouncing  him  both  in  the  Holy  Land  and 
in  every  country  of  Europe.  Their  unbounded  popularity, 
then  at  its  height,  made  them  truly  formidable  foes.  But  even 
these  could  not  completely  win  public  opinion  to  the  side  of 
the  Pope.  The  Germans  were  on  the  whole  loyal  to  their  King: 
it  was  felt  that  there  was  something  unchristian  in  the  intense 
animosity  of  the  Pope;  and  his  attempt  to  levy  a  tenth  on 
the  clergy  to  continue  the  struggle,  made  many  earnestly 
question  whether  it  was  really  one  for  the  Gospel  or  for  the 
personal  ambition  of  the  Roman  See.  Gregory  IX  was  forced 
to  listen  to  proposals  of  peace  and  a  treaty  was  made  with  the 
Emperor  at  St.  Germano  on  June  14,  1230. 

Thus  ended  the  first  act  of  the  tragic  dispute  and  a  peace 
of  nearly  nine  years,  from  September,  1230,  to  Palm  Sunday, 
1239,  Frederic  II  was  free  from  the  ban  of  the  Church. 

The  position  of  Frederic  II  in  Italy  during  this  period  may 
be  compared  with  that  of  the  great  Lombard  King  Liutprand 
in  the  eighth  century.  Do  what  he  might  for  the  Church,  the 
Papacy  still  in  its  heart  regarded  him  as  nefandissimusy  to  be 
thrust  out  on  the  first  possible  occasion. 


THE   PAPACY  AND  THE   HOUSE  OF   HOHENSTAUFEN        259 

The  nine  years  of  peace  passed  amid  tokens  of  outward 
amity  and  inward  distrust  on  the  part  of  Emperor  and  Pope. 
Each  was  necessary  to  the  other,  as  Frederic  II  could  not  afford 
to  fall  under  the  ban  of  the  Church  and  Gregory  IX  needed 
support  against  the  Romans.  There  was  a  growing  desire  to 
establish  a  republic,  and  to  make  Rome  the  centre  of  a  city 
state  like  Milan  and  Florence.  The  Senate  repeatedly  claimed 
the  Papal  States  as  the  property  of  the  City,  not  the  Pope. 
Frederic  II  supported  the  Pope;  and,  as  a  usual  result,  the  Roman 
army  suffered  a  severe  defeat.  There  were  the  customary  rec- 
onciliations and  recalls  of  the  Papal  Court,  followed  by  the 
banishment  of  Pope  and  Cardinals  from  Rome.  But  in  addition 
to  these  domestic  troubles  Gregory  IX  was  dismayed  by  the 
alarming  progress  of  heresy.  Here  he  and  the  Emperor  were  in 
complete  accord,  and  the  laws  of  Frederic  II  must  have  been 
severe  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  exacting  critic  of  his  zeal 
against  false  doctrine.  But  the  real  cause  of  dispute  was  the 
growth  of  the  imperial  power  in  Lombardy,  an  unpardonable 
offence  in  the  eyes  of  the  pontiff.  Frederic  II  was  fully  de- 
termined to  assert  his  power  within  the  frontiers  of  the  Em- 
pire and  advanced  against  the  cities  of  the  Lombard  League. 
On  November  23,  1237,  he  utterly  defeated  the  Milanese  at 
Corte  Nuova.  Their  carrocio,  or  war  wagon,  the  palladium  of 
an  Italian  City,  was  captured  and  sent  to  Rome.  The  Lombard 
cities  fought  desperately,  and  the  imperial  army  had  to  retire 
before  Brescia.  Nevertheless  Frederic  II  fully  avenged  the 
defeat  of  his  grandfather,  and  became  master  of  Lombardy. 
This  Gregory  IX  could  not  endure,  and  once  more  the  Emperor 
was  excommunicated. 

Frederic  II  entered  the  contest  without  misgivings.  He 
appealed  to  the  Kings  of  Europe,  among  them  to  his  brother- 
in-law,  Henry  III  of  England.  He  put  down  all  symptoms  of 
rebellion  among  his  clergy  in  Sicily,  and  he  confiscated  the 
property  of  monasteries  and  churches  opposed  to  him.  In  1240 
he  advanced  into  the  Papal  States  and  resided  at  Viterbo, 
prepared  to  march  against  Rome.  The  Pope  summoned  a  coun- 
cil and  a  large  number  of  prelates,  some  from  England,  as- 


260  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

sembled  at  Genoa,  where  they  were  embarked  to  be  conveyed 
to  Rome.  Frederic  II's  powerful  fleet,  aided  by  the  Pisans, 
defeated  the  Genoese,  and  the  prelates  were  captured  and 
taken  to  Naples.  The  Romans,  however,  for  a  wonder  stood 
by  their  Pope;  for  Gregory  had  received  large  sums  of  money 
from  England,  then  the  fief  of  the  Holy  See,  and  thus  could 
pacify  the  citizens  and  support  the  Lombard  League.  How- 
ever, the  defection  of  Cardinal  John  Colonna  with  the  papal 
forces  was  a  severe  blow  to  Gregory,  who  found  support  in 
the  person  of  the  Senator  Matthew  Rubeus,  representative  of 
the  rival  house  of  Orsine. 

In  the  summer  of  1241  Frederic  II  and  his  army  were  at 
the  gates  of  Rome.  Suddenly,  in  August,  1241,  the  news 
reached  him  that  Gregory  IX,  now  almost  a  hundred  years  old, 
was  dead.  The  invading  army  withdrew;  and  the  Cardinals 
chose  Celestine  IV,  who  reigned  only  seventeen  days.  For  two 
years  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  was  vacant  till  the  imprisoned 
prelates  were  released,  and  Sinibald  Fieschi  of  Lavagna,  a 
Genoese,  was  elected  Pope  on  June  25,  1243.  He  took  the  title 
of  Innocent  IV.  With  this  pontiff"  the  strife  between  Pope  and 
Emperor  was  renewed  with  fiercer  intensity.  Before  his  election 
the  new  Pope,  a  member  of  a  house  of  Counts  of  the  Empire, 
had  been  a  friend  of  Frederic  II,  who  if  he  had  hopes  of  a  rec- 
onciliation, had  insight  to  remark  that  the  elevation  of  a 
Fieschi  had  turned  a  friend  into  an  enemy,  as  no  Pope  could 
possibly  be  a  Ghibelline.  At  first,  however,  Frederic  did  all  he 
could  to  conciliate  the  Pope;  and  negotiations  were  proceeding 
when  Innocent  mounted  his  horse  and  rode  away  to  Genoa, 
where  he  was  received  by  his  own  city  with  the  highest  honours. 
Leaving  his  old  home  he  made  his  way  across  the  Alps  to 

Lyons. 

Lyons,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  not  at  this  time  in 
the  kingdom  of  France,  but  was  a  city  of  the  Empire,  owning 
no  authority  but  that  of  its  Archbishop.  Innocent  IV  on  ar- 
riving found  less  enthusiasm  than  had  greeted  fugitive  Popes 
who  in  earlier  days  had  crossed  the  Alps.  The  Kings  of 
the  western  world  felt  that  the  cause  of  Frederic   II   was   in 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        26 1 

part  their  own,  and  had  their  suspicions  that  Innocent,  in 
arousing  Lombardy  against  the  Emperor,  was  acting  from 
more  worldly  motives  than  his  predecessors.  Indeed  the  papal 
policy,  entailing  as  it  did  the  withdrawals  of  vast  sums  of  money 
from  France  and,  especially,  from  England,  to  pay  for  the  war 
with  Frederic,  was  alienating  the  sympathy  of  the  people 
once  most  devoted  to  its  interests.  Accordingly  when  Louis  IX 
of  France  reached  Lyons  he  treated  Innocent  with  the  deference 
due  from  a  Saint  to  a  persecuted  pontiff,  and  with  the  wisdom 
becoming  a  king  of  France.  The  King  promised  to  take  counsel 
with  his  nobles,  and  declined  the  great  but  costly  privilege 
of  having  the  Pope  take  up  his  abode  at  Reims  in  his  do- 
minions. Nor  were  Aragon  or  England  desirous  to  welcome 
Innocent  IV. 

On  July  17,  1245,  the  Pope  solemnly  deposed  Frederic 
from  the  Empire  and  ordered  the  Germans  to  choose  a  suc- 
cessor. In  vain  did  the  famous  lawyer,  Thaddeus  of  Suessa, 
plead  for  delay.  Innocent  accused  Frederic  of  every  crime. 
His  luxurious  court,  his  familiarity  with  Saracen  women,  his 
alleged  apostasy  from  the  Christian  religion  were  all  asserted 
by  the  furious  Pope.  At  the  end  of  the  ceremony  the  clergy 
present  extinguished  their  torches,  and  left  the  deposed  Em- 
peror to  outer  darkness. 

The  war  in  Lombardy  was  prosecuted  with  equally  un- 
christian ferocity  on  both  sides.  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  vied  with 
one  another  in  atrocious  reprisals.  At  first  Frederic  was  com- 
pletely successful,  but  his  victories  were  stained  by  the  ap- 
palling cruelty  of  such  leaders  as  Ezzelino  de  Romano.  The 
great  reverse  of  the  Emperor  was  the  siege  of  Parma,  where  he 
was  thwarted  by  the  Ghibellines  in  the  City  and  his  fortress 
and  camp  at  Victoria  destroyed.  This  was  in  1248;  the  next 
year  Frederic's  beloved  son  Enzio,  King  of  Sardinia,  was  taken 
by  the  people  of  Bologna,  and  languished  in  prison  for  twenty- 
two  years.  Frederic  then  retired  to  Apulia,  and  in  December, 
1250,  he  was  taken  suddenly  ill  and  died.  With  him  ended  the 
line  of  the  great  emperors. 

The  last  act  of  the  tragedy  is  the  determined  effort  of  the 


262  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Popes,  or  rather  the  Guelfs  in  Italy,  to  destroy  the  house  of 
Frederic  root  and  branch.  The  quarrel  had  degenerated  into  a 
blood  feud.  There  was  hardly  any  pretence  as  to  the  motive. 
The  Pope  claimed  Sicily  and  Naples  as  his  property,  and  re- 
peatedly offered  the  crown  to  any  prince  who  would  pay  for  it. 
Frederic  IPs  son  Conrad  had  to  fight  for  his  father's  crown. 
The  kingdom  was  practically  during  Conrad's  absence  in 
Germany  in  the  hands  of  Manfred,  the  illegitimate  son  of  the 
late  Emperor.  Conrad  crossed  the  Alps  after  the  death  of  his 
father  with  a  small  force,  and  finding  his  position  in  Lombardy 
difficult,  he  sailed  from  Venice  to  the  south  of  Italy.  Innocent 
IV  in  the  meantime  had  offered  the  Sicilian  crown  to  Richard 
of  Cornwall,  brother  to  Henry  III  of  England,  and, on  his  refusal, 
to  the  king's  younger  son  Edmund.  But  the  title  was  a  mere 
shadow,  in  return  for  which  Henry  III  paid  large  sums  to  the 
Pope.  Conrad  held  the  kingdom  till  his  death  on  May  21,  1254, 
when  he  left  an  infant  heir  Conradin,  a  child  three  years 
old.  Innocent  IV  died  in  December  in  the  same  year.  His 
character  showed  a  great  decline  from  the  earlier  papal  ideal. 
He  displayed  few  of  the  great  qualities  of  his  famous  prede- 
cessors, who,  at  least,  fought  with  a  high  sense  of  ecclesiastical 
liberty.  Innocent  displayed  rather  the  spirit  of  a  Genoese 
partisan  of  the  Guelfic  interests,  and  the  animosity  of  the  leader 
of  an  Italian  faction.  His  extreme  rapacity  and  his  disregard 
of  all  interest  in  the  church  at  large,  in  comparison  with  his 
selfish  conception  of  the  advantage  of  the  Papacy,  roused 
general  disgust.  Respect  for  the  supreme  see  of  Christendom 
was  waning,  as  its  complete  triumph  over  its  enemy,  the  house 
of  Hohenstaufen,  was  being  hastened  on  by  death. 

The  struggle  was  no  longer  between  Pope  and  Emperor; 
for  since  Frederic  IPs  death  Germany  was  in  hopeless  con- 
fusion, and  the  barren  title  of  Emperor  had  been  offered  to 
foreigners  like  Richard  of  Cornwall  and  Alfonso  of  Castile. 
From  the  death  of  William  of  Holland  in  1256  there  was  an 
interregnum  till  1273.  The  whole  struggle  turned  on  whether 
the  Hohenstaufen  should  continue  to  reign  at  Naples,  and 
whether  the  Pope  had  a  right  to  appoint  whom  he  chose  to  a 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        263 

kingdom  over  which  he  claimed  to  be  the  feudal  overlord.  It 
had  not  only  been  offered  by  the  Papacy  to  Edmund  of  Eng- 
land, but  also  to  Louis  IX  for  one  of  his  sons;  but  the  saintly 
king's  sense  of  justice  made  him  refuse  the  suggestion.  The 
people  supported  Manfred,  and  he  was  worthy  of  their  con- 
fidence. He  had  played  a  most  difficult  part  with  consummate 
skill.  As  a  bastard  son  of  Frederic  II,  he  could  not  legally 
inherit  his  dominions  and  was  bound  by  ties  of  honour,  first  to 
Conrad,  and  then  to  the  infant  Conradin.  He  had  succeeded  in 
partly  allaying  the  suspicions  of  Innocent  IV,  and  in  recon- 
ciling the  country  to  his  rule,  for  what  the  Sicilies  wanted  was  a 
native  prince,  who  would  defend  them  alike  against  the  Pope 
and  the  Germans,  whom  they  hated  far  more  bitterly  than  they 
did  the  Saracens.  On  August  11,  1258,  Manfred  felt  that  the 
crisis  demanded  that  he  should  assume  the  crown.  He  professed 
that  he  regarded  Conradin,  who  was  also  Duke  of  Swabia,  as 
his  heir;  but  he  could  not  allow  things  to  drift  as  they  would 
inevitably  do  if  a  minor  were  on  the  throne.  For  some  years 
with  Manfred  at  its  head  the  Ghibelline  party  was  triumphant 
and  it  was  necessary  that  if  the  papal  cause  was  to  succeed 
that  help  should  be  found  beyond  the  Alps.  In  1261  a  French- 
man, James  Pantaleon  of  Troyes,  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  was 
elevated  to  the  papal  throne  as  Urban  IV,  a  proof  that  even 
when  feudalism  was  at  its  height,  merit  had  its  opportunity  in 
the  church:  for  the  new  pope  was  the  son  of  a  cobbler. 

It  was  the  old  story  so  often  repeated  since  the  days  of 
Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth.  The  Popes  could  tolerate  no  master 
in  Italy;  they  could  not  stand  without  one,  so  they  had  to  seek 
for  outside  aid  whether  from  Constantinople,  across  the  Rhine 
or  in  France.  They  now  brought  upon  themselves  harder  task- 
masters than  either  the  Byzantine  or  the  German  Caesars. 
Their  need,  however,  was  indeed  great;  for  the  City  of  Rome 
was  as  impatient  of  the  priestly  government  as  ever  and  Man- 
fred's power  and  popularity  were  daily  increasing. 

The  scruples  of  St.  Louis  were  not  shared  by  his  brother 
Charles  of  Anjou,  who  by  his  marriage  with  Beatrix,  daughter 
of  the  last  Count  of  Provence,  had  obtained  that  lordship. 


264  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Charles  was  ambitious  of  being  a,  king,  and  was  urged  on  by 
Beatrix,  whose  two  sisters  were  married  to  the  Kings  of  France 
and  England,  whilst  a  third  was  the  wife  of  Richard  of  Corn- 
wall, who  had  been  elected  Emperor.  The  hopes  of  the  Guelfs 
were  fixed  on  Charles  and  they  determined  to  lure  him  into 
Italy.  In  1262  Urban  IV  sent  an  embassy  to  offer  Charles  the 
Kingdom  of  Sicily,  and  to  overcome  the  scruples  of  Louis  the 
French  king.  It  was  also  necessary  to  persuade  Henry  III  of 
England  to  resign  the  crown  which  had  been  previously  be- 
stowed, for  a  large  sum  of  money,  on  his  son  Edmund.  When 
these  difficulties  had  been  adjusted,  Charles  immediately  ac- 
quiesced, but  in  the  meantime  secured  his  election  as  Senator 
of  Rome;  without  informing  the  Pope,  who  never  during  his 
entire  pontificate  was  in  Rome,  what  he  had  done.  In  this  way 
Charles  revealed  his  policy  to  become  King  of  Sicily  and  master 
of  Rome  itself. 

In  1265  another  Frenchman  became  Pope  in  the  person  of 
Clement  IV,  and  the  expedition  against  Manfred  was  pre- 
pared. Every  effort  was  made  to  raise  the  necessary  funds. 
Charles's  wife  sold  her  jewels,  the  Pope  taxed  the  churches 
throughout  Christendom  to  the  utmost  limit — even  Scotland 
had  to  contribute  to  his  Sicilian  enterprise.  The  war  against 
Manfred  was  declared  to  be  a  crusade.  In  this,  even  the  Albi- 
gensian  war  was  outdone,  which  was  at  least  against  heretics, 
whereas  the  present  attack  was  on  orthodox  Christians  whose 
ruler  had  opposed  the  worldly  schemes  of  the  Pope. 

Charles  reached  Rome  on  the  Thursday  before  Whitsun- 
tide (May  21,  1265).  He  is  described  as  a  man  of  forty-six, 
powerful  in  frame,  and  royal  in  demeanour.  His  complexion 
was  olive,  his  face  severe  and  hard;  his  glance  awe-inspiring. 
Such  an  appearance  suited  the  most  sinister  figure  in  the 
gloomy  tragedy  of  the  struggle  between  Guelf  and  Ghibelline. 
He  was  magnificently  received  as  Senator,  but  gave  the  Pope 
much  offence  by  presuming  to  take  up  his  lodgings  in  the 
sacred  palace  of  the  Lateran.  Charles  waited  at  Rome  for  the 
rest  of  the  year,  desperately  in  need  of  funds,  and  anxiously 
expecting  the  arrival  of  the  French  army.  The  coronation  took 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        265 

place  in  St.  Peter's  on  Epiphany,  1266,  an  honour  which  no 
king  had  hitherto  received:  on  June  20  the  King  left  Rome. 

Manfred  felt  his  power  slipping  from  him  with  the  ad- 
vance of  the  French.  His  barons,  even  the  Ghibellines,  began 
to  desert,  and  the  only  troops  he  could  depend  on  were  Germans 
and  Saracens.  On  February  26th  the  decisive  battle  was  fought 
at  Benevento.  The  event  seemed  likely  to  be  in  Manfred's 
favour;  only  at  the  last  did  Charles'  generalship  retrieve  the  day. 
When  all  was  lost  Manfred  rushed  on  his  death  and  was  slain, 
fighting  to  the  last.  He  was  only  thirty-four  years  of  age  and 
was  regarded  even  by  the  Guelfs  as  a  model  of  knightly  virtue. 
Charles  gave  him  an  honourable  burial,  but  without  the  rites 
of  the  Church.  The  Bishop  of  Cosenza  with  the  consent  of  the 
ungenerous  Pope  had  his  body  cast  forth  as  that  of  an  excom- 
municated person.  Manfred's  wife  and  children  endured  a 
lifelong  imprisonment. 

Charles  soon  caused  his  new  subjects  to  regret  their  aban- 
donment of  Manfred  and  the  cause  of  the  Guelfs  once  more 
asserted  itself.  The  legitimate  heir  of  Frederic  II  was  his 
grandson  Conradin,  now  growing  up  to  manhood  in  Germany. 
He  was  summoned  to  Italy  to  fight  for  his  inheritance  in  1267. 
Supported  by  Don  Arrigo  of  Castile,  Conradin  encountered 
Charles'  army  at  Tagliacozzo  on  August  23,  1268.  He  was 
defeated  and  escaped  from  the  field  of  battle,  but  was  taken 
later  and  sent  to  Charles. 

What  followed  was  one  of  the  most  disgraceful  episodes 
in  the  horrible  war  between  the  Pope  and  his  supporters  and 
the  Ghibellines  in  Italy.  Charles  of  Anjou  seems  to  have  been 
a  man  destitute  of  mercy  and  incapable  of  a  generous  sentiment. 
Clement  IV  acted  as  a  weak  and  vindictive  French  priest. 
Conradin  had  been  taken  within  the  territory  of  the  Church 
and  might  justly  have  been  claimed  by  the  Pope  as  a  prisoner; 
but  he  was  a  Hohenstaufen  and  Clement  left  him  to  his  fate. 
Charles  had  the  last  scion  of  the  great  Emperors  beheaded  at 
Naples  on  October  29,  1268.  The  gallant  boy  met  his  death 
with  dignity.  A  month  later  Clement  IV  was  summoned  to  his 
account.  Thus  perished  the  House  of  Swabia,  and  it  is  instruc- 


266  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tive  to  notice  how  completely  the  sympathy  of  the  reader  must 
change  from  one  side  to  the  other  in  the  interval  between 
Hadrian  IV  and  Alexander  III  and  the  two  French  Popes, 
Urban  IV  and  Clement  IV.  The  first  two  fought  for  the  dignity 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  and  for  the  freedom  of  Italy  against  one 
of  the  greatest  of  the  Emperors.  The  later  Popes,  as  heads  of 
a  faction,  successfully  crushed  the  remnants  of  the  house  which 
their  predecessors  had  defied. 

The  sequel  remains  to  be  told.  Charles'  cruel  rule  made  the 
French  odious  in  Sicily  and  slowly  prepared  for  an  awful  day 
of  vengeance.  On  March  31,  1282,  Easter  Tuesday,  the  people 
of  Palermo  were  celebrating  the  festival.  A  Frenchman  in- 
sulted a  Sicilian  girl.  The  cry  was  raised,"  Death  to  the  French." 
At  the  signal  a  general  massacre  began  throughout  the  island, 
and  the  invaders  were  exterminated.  This  is  known  as  the 
Sicilian  Vespers.  The  island  offered  its  crown  to  Peter  of  Ara- 
gon,  husband  of  Manfred's  daughter  Constance.  Despite  the 
curses  of  the  Pope  and  the  threats  of  Charles,  Sicily  was  lost 
to  the  house  of  Anjou,  who  only  retained  its  Italian  possessions. 
Charles  died  in  1285. 

In  this  manner  ended  a  struggle  which  had  lasted  for 
more  than  a  century.  A  dynasty  of  men  of  the  most  forceful 
character  and  ability  had  made  a  bid  for  supremacy  in  Europe 
and,  after  almost  attaining  their  object,  had  failed  disastrously. 
It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  Popes  who  brought  low 
the  mighty  Hohenstaufens  were  not  magnificent  and  haughty 
prelates,  enthroned  in  majesty  in  Rome  and  calmly  issuing 
laws  for  the  world,  or,  indignant  at  the  perversity  of  humanity, 
launching  the  thunders  of  excommunications  and  interdicts 
from  the  proud  security  of  St.  Peter's  or  the  Lateran.  Still  less 
must  they  and  their  entourage  be  regarded  as  men  living  in 
luxury  out  of  the  enormous  taxes  they  wrung  from  the  rest  of 
the  Church.  Hadrian  IV's  words  to  his  friend  John  of  Salisbury 
might  have  been  uttered  by  any  pope  from  Gregory  VII  to 
Boniface  VIII.  When  his  obligations  are  compared  with  his 
resources  there  were  few  poorer  potentates  than  the  Popes 
of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  They  were  to  be  found 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        267 

everywhere  but  in  Rome;  and  if  they  did  get  a  foothold  in 
their  own  City  they  were  almost  certain  to  be  driven  out 
within  a  few  months.  Very  rare  indeed  was  a  Pope  able  to 
occupy  his  own  palace  in  the  Lateran  or  to  officiate  in  his  own 
Cathedral.  Yet  these  wandering  pontiffs  brought  the  pride  of 
the  Empire  to  the  dust. 

When  enquiry  is  made  as  to  how  this  was  accomplished 
it  cannot  be  argued  that  the  victory  of  the  Papacy  was  a  moral 
one,  as  the  triumph  of  Gregory  VII  over  Henry  IV  had  been. 
Innocent  III,  despite  the  fact  that  circumstances  compelled 
him  to  sanction  two  great  crimes,  the  Latin  Conquest  of 
Constantinople  and  the  Albigensian  war,  was  morally  better 
than  his  age,  as  was  possibly  Gregory  IX;  but  some  Popes, 
though  personally  severe  to  themselves  like  Innocent  IV,  dis- 
gusted even  the  politicians  of  the  thirteenth  century  by  their 
unscrupulous  hostility  to  the  Emperor.  Nor  was  it  a  triumph 
of  mind  over  brute  force.  Hadrian  IV,  Alexander  III,  Innocent 
III  and  Gregory  IX  were  intellectual  giants,  and  were  con- 
spicuous as  politicians  and  lawyers,  but  Frederic  Barbarossa 
was  honoured  as  the  most  efficient  and  just  of  German  rulers. 
Frederic  II  is  one  of  the  greatest  legislators  in  history,  and  his 
intellectual  capacity  places  him  in  the  first  rank. 

The  failure  of  the  Hohenstaufens  must  be  otherwise  ac- 
counted for,  and  the  cause  seems  to  have  been  the  deep  re- 
sentment their  nation  aroused  in  Italy.  They  seemed  incapable 
of  realising  that  a  people  as  a  rule  their  inferiors  in  military 
prowess,  often  vain  and  inconstant,  lacking  the  high  serious 
qualities  of  the  German  race,  could  prove  such  formidable 
foes  and  be  so  insensible  to  the  terrors  of  their  arms  and  the 
ruthlessness  of  their  methods.  It  seemed  incredible  to  them 
that  ruined  towns  could  arise  from  their  ashes  and  crush  great 
armies.  The  Popes,  more  farsighted,  took  the  side  of  Italian 
patriotism,  and  used  it  as  a  lever  against  the  power  of  the 
Empire. 

In  addition  to  this  France  was  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the 
Papacy.  Already  the  two  nations,  the  Germans  and  the 
French,   once   almost   identical,   now  drawing  wide   apart  in 


268  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

character  and  ideals;  and  the  eastern  and  western  Franks 
were  rivals  for  world  domination.  France  and  the  Empire 
could  never  cooperate  in  a  crusade  because  both  people  wanted 
to  be  dominant  in  the  East.  Consequently  when  the  Pope 
gained  the  support  of  Charles  of  Anjou  by  recognising  him  as 
King  of  the  Sicilies,  he  secured  French  ambition  to  dominate 
the  Mediterranean  as  a  powerful  ally.  That  the  unfortunate 
country  was  handed  over  to  a  ruler  far  more  cruel  than  any 
German  had  yet  shown  himself  is  a  proof  that  papal  diplomacy 
was  as  unscrupulous  as  that  of  any  other  power. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  morality  of  these  trans- 
actions, the  Popes  had  gained  the  object  they  sought.  Italy 
was  to  remain  for  centuries  disunited;  and  no  great  power  was 
to  be  permitted  to  fetter  the  Roman  Church.  The  work  begun 
by  Charles  the  Great  was  completely  undone:  the  Empire 
was  never  again  to  dominate  the  papal  policy,  or  really  to  rule 
in  Italy.  The  results  of  this  yet  remain  to  be  considered. 

From  Charles  the  Great  to  Frederic  II  (800-1250)  the 
Emperor  was,  whenever  he  asserted  himself,  the  greatest  man 
in  the  Western  World.  He  owed  this  less  to  the  imperial  crown 
than  to  his  position  as  King  of  Germany.  It  is  sufficient  to 
mention  King  Henry  the  Fowler  and  the  Emperors  Otto  I, 
II,  III  in  the  tenth  century,  Henry  II,  III  and  IV  in  the 
eleventh,  Henry  V  and  Frederic  Barbarossa  in  the  twelfth, 
and  Frederic  II  in  the  thirteenth.  From  this  time  forward 
there  was  never  an  Emperor  who  was  not  completely  over- 
shadowed by  some  other  potentate  in  Europe  with  the  single 
exception  of  Charles  V,  and  this  was  due  not  to  his  position 
in  Germany  but  to  the  fact  that  he  was  King  of  Spain,  and  had 
inherited  the  Netherlands.  The  Germans  were  never  able  to 
combine  under  a  single  head  from  the  fourteenth  till  the 
nineteenth  century,  nor  take  the  position  in  the  world  to  which 
they  believed  their  virtues  entitled  them.  The  country  could 
not  recover  from  the  fatal  effects  of  their  attempts  to  annex 
Italy  and  become,  in  truth  as  well  as  in  name,  the  "Romans" 
of  the  West. 

And  in  fact  the  Popes  owed  their  victory  more  to  their 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        269 

weakness  of  Italy  than  to  anything  else.  In  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury they  really  ruled  in  Rome,  and  enjoyed  princely  wealth 
and  splendor.  The  price  they  paid  for  this  was  that  they  en- 
joyed the  rank  of  the  greatest  of  Italian  princes,  but  no  more. 
Insensibly,  whilst  paying  them  the  highest  honours  as  their 
spiritual  rulers,  the  monarchs  of  Europe  ceased  to  regard  them 
as  of  much  greater  importance  than  other  petty  potentates. 
In  the  days  when  driven  from  Rome,  they  sought  an  asylum 
in  foreign  lands,  and  wandered  almost  as  suppliants  from  one 
Italian  city  to  the  other,  they  commanded  the  obedience  of 
the  world.  Roman  in  the  truest  sense  it  might  be  said  of  the 
Papacy  as  it  was  of  the  Republic: 

Merses  profundo,  pulchrior  evenit. 

But  as  a  prosperous  Italian  institution  the  Roman  Church  lost 
the  respect,  even  of  the  most  ardent  Catholics. 

Whatever  judgment  may  be  passed  on  their  policy  and  ac- 
tions, it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  the  Popes  of  the  eleventh, 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  numbered  the  greatest  men 
in  the  world.  St.  Leo  IX,  St.  Gregory  VII,  Urban  II,  Hadrian 
IV,  Alexander  III,  Innocent  III,  Gregory  IX,  Innocent  IV, 
and  Boniface  VIII  were  the  dominating  forces  in  Europe.  But 
no  pope  in  after  days  can  compare  with  any  of  these.  And  a 
man  may  be  fairly  acquainted  with  history  and  yet  find  it 
difficult  to  connect  much  that  is  definite  with  the  names  of 
any  pontiff  in  the  fourteenth,  the  seventeenth  or  the  eighteenth 
centuries.  Even  during  the  period  of  the  Reformation  and 
counter  Reformation  Catholics  looked,  not  to  the  Popes,  but 
to  the  Kings  of  Spain  as  their  chief  support.  Modern  Popes 
owe  more  than  they  suspect  to  the  misfortune  that  they,  like 
their  predecessors  in  heroic  days,  are  not  allowed  to  rule  as 
princes  in  a  badly  policed  city  over  an  ill-governed  Italian 
principality. 

The  deep  resentment  felt  in  Germany  for  the  Papal  part 
in  these  long  contests  with  the  Empire  was  long  dormant,  but 
finally  burst  forth  in  the  Reformation,  which  might  have  been 
even  more  formidable  had  the  Emperor  been  a  German  in- 


270  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

stead  of  a  Spaniard.  It  is  perhaps  fanciful  to  notice  that  in 
1227  Gregory  IX  pronounced  the  sentence  of  excommunica- 
tion on  Frederic  II  and  in  1527,  three  centuries  later,  the  army 
of  Charles  V  sacked  Rome  before  the  eyes  of  Pope  Clement  VII. 

The  defeat  of  the  Hohenstaufen  and  the  ruin  of  the  Chris- 
tian cause  in  the  Holy  Land  in  the  thirteenth  century  turned 
the  effort  of  Germany  in  another  direction.  Frederic  II's 
faithful  friend,  Herman  of  Salza,  the  Master  of  the  Teutonic 
Order,  sought  another  field  for  the  energy  of  the  military 
Christianity  of  his  nation,  and  beyond  the  borders  of  the 
Empire  on  the  inhospitable  shores  of  the  Baltic  his  Order 
made  their  memorable  settlement. 

Throughout  the  thirteenth  century  the  Order  which  did 
not  finally  abandon  the  Holy  Land  till  1291,  was  drifting  to 
the  East  of  Europe  first  at  the  invitation  of  Andrew  of  Hungary, 
and  acquiring  their  settlement  as  armed  missionaries  among 
the  Wends  of  Prussia.  Then,  till  their  crushing  defeat  by  the 
Poles  at  Tannenbourg  in  1410,  they  were  steadily  extending 
German  influence  eastward  and  laying  the  foundations  of  the 
principality  of  the  family  of  Hohenzollern,  in  whom  their 
grand-mastership  eventually  became  hereditary.  Thus  from 
the  failure  of  the  Crusades  the  way  was  paved  for  the  Kingdom 
of  Prussia,  and  the  late  imperial  dynasty  of  Germany. 

The  fall  of  the  Hohenstaufen  before  the  ambition  of 
Charles  of  Anjou  also  brought  about  the  complete  collapse  of 
Christian  ascendancy  in  Eastern  Europe.  The  Latin  Empire 
in  Constantinople  came  to  an  end  in  1261  and  the  last  strip 
of  the  Holy  Land  was  lost  in  1291,  but  in  Greece  and  the  Morea 
French  principalities  existed,  which  were  lost  or  abandoned, 
because  their  chiefs  were  called  to  fight  in  Italy.  Thus  a  way 
was  paved  for  the  establishment  of  Turkey  in  Europe  in  the 
fifteenth  century. 

England,  which  had  been  the  nation  most  faithful  to  the 
Popes  and  had  never  forgotten  that  it  owed  its  Christianity  to 
Gregory  the  Great,  began  to  be  alienated  from  the  Roman  See 
by  the  enormous  exactions  of  Innocent  IV.  Since  John's  sur- 
render of  his  crown  to  Innocent  III  the  papal  policy  had  been 


THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  HOUSE  OF  HOHENSTAUFEN        27 1 

fostering  a  deep  and  sullen  feeling  of  resentment.  It  was  a 
pope  who  condemned  Magna  Charta,  and  censured  Arch- 
bishop Stephen  Langton,  a  pope  who  opposed  Simon  de 
Montfort,  a  pope  who  drove  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  to  remon- 
strate at  the  shameless  way  he  tried  to  intrude  Italians,  even 
as  children,  into  important  benefices  in  the  Church.  People 
absolutely  free  from  any  suspicion  of  heresy  were  led  to  con- 
trast the  conduct  of  the  Papacy  and  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospels.  The  long  reign  of  the  weak  and  pious  Henry  III  did 
as  much  to  alienate  England  from  Rome  as  anything  up  to 
the  Reformation  by  kindling  sparks  of  suspicion  and  distrust 
of  the  court  of  the  Popes. 

It  cannot  be  pretended  that  the  strife  between  the  Papacy 
and  the  House  of  Hohenstaufen,  between  Guelf  and  Ghibelline, 
was  a  war  of  religion.  There  was  no  question  of  doctrine  or 
practice  which  divided  the  combatants.  On  these  points  they 
were  in  full  agreement.  The  Guelfs  did  not  stand  for  priestly 
piety,  nor  the  Ghibelline  for  secular  independence.  There  was 
no  moral  question  at  issue.  Gregory  IX  might  denounce  Fred- 
eric II's  excesses,  his  half  pagan  court,  his  sensual  indulgence; 
but  as  is  often  the  case  in  ecclesiastical  disputes,  when  the 
parties  are  friends,  sins  are  not  rebuked;  it  is  only  after  the 
quarrel  has  broken  out.  Neither  side  favoured  heretics:  both 
held  them  in  equal  abhorrence.  Nor  was  there  any  difference 
in  the  spirit  in  which  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  waged  war.  Charles 
was  just  as  merciless  a  tyrant  as  Ezzelino  da  Romano,  of  whom 
it  was  said  that  if  Francis  had  come  in  the  guise  of  Christ,  he 
had  come  in  that  of  Satan  on  earth. 

The  destruction  of  Frederic  II  and  his  house's  rule  in 
Sicily  was  like  the  Albigensian  war,  without  its  excuse,  the 
overthrowing  of  a  premature  civilization.  In  the  eleventh 
century  Languedoc  had  been  a  centre  of  culture,  an  oasis  in 
the  midst  of  brutal  violence.  Music  and  song  had  flourished 
there  with  all  the  amenities  of  life.  Simon  de  Montfort  and  his 
fanatic  crusaders  came  and  swept  it  away.  Frederic's  kingdom 
with  its  long  tradition  of  good  government  under  the  Normans 
had  made  Sicily  the  hope  of  civilization  in  the  centre  of  the 


272  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Mediterranean.  Frederic  had  attracted  to  it  the  wisdom  of  the 
age  from  East  to  West.  Charles,  backed  by  the  Popes,  washed 
out  this  hopeful  civilization  in  blood,  not  because  of  their 
horror  of  the  sins  of  the  people,  but  because  their  ruin  was 
necessary  to  the  policy  of  the  Church  party. 

AUTHORITIES 

The  authority  for  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Frederic  I  is  by  his  uncle  Otto, 
Bishop  of  Freising,  who  died  in  11 58.  His  Gesta  Friderici  was  continued  by 
others  down  to  1170.  It  is  in  the  Monumenta  Germ.  Script.,  XX. 

The  story  of  Nicolas  Breakespear,  who  became  Hadrian  IV,  is  told  in  the 
Liber  Pontificalis  by  the  Englishman  Boso.  See  William  of  Newbury  (1136- 
1208),  Historia  Anglicana,  II,  6,  and  John  of  Salisbury,  Polycraticus,  VIII 
(Migne,  P.  L.j  199-200).  Two  English  biographers  are  A.  H.  Tarleton,  Nicolas 
Breakespear,  and  F.  M.  Steele,  Story  of  an  English  Pope.  Dr.  Mann,  Lives  of 
the  Popes,  etc.,  Vol.  IX,  has  a  full  account. 

For  Frederic  Barbarossa  and  the  Lombard  League,  Villari,  Medieval 
Italy  from  Charlemagne  to  Henry  VII.  Freeman,  Historical  Essays,  "Frederic 
I,  King  of  Italy."  Refer  also  to  Milman,  Gregorovius  and  others. 

There  is  unfortunately  no  modern  biography  known  to  me  of  Alexander 
III  except  Mann,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  X,  who  devotes  with  the  bibliography  238 
pages  to  him.  His  life  by  Boso  to  1178  is  the  last  in  the  Liber  Pontificalis. 

Two  whole  volumes  of  Mann's  Lives  of  the  Popes  are  devoted  to  Innocent 
III.  A.  Luchaire  has  six  small  and  interesting  volumes  on  this  Pope.  The 
Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  VIII,  has  a  short  bibliography  and  a  most  useful 
map  of  Europe  at  this  time.  The  best  English  account  of  Frederic  II  which  I 
know  is  in  Milman's  Latin  Christianity,  Bk.  X,  of  which  Freeman  in  his 
Essay  on  Frederic  II,  Historical  Essays,  p.  295,  says,  "There  is  no  part  of  his 
great  work  which  is  more  palpably  a  labour  of  love."  There  is  an  English  life 
by  T.  L.  Kington-Oliphant,  History  of  Frederic  the  Second,  Emperor  of  the 
Romans  (1862).  See  also  Villari,  Medieval  Italy,  Bk.  Ill,  Chs.  II-IV;  "Fred- 
eric II,"  "Manfred,"  and  "Conradin." 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    FRENCH    MONARCHY   AND   THE    PAPACY 

Importance  of  France  —  The  great  feudatories  —  Louis  VI  —  Louis  VII  —  Philip 
Augustus  —  Philip  Augustus  and  England  —  French  and  English  kings  and  their 
subjects  —  The  "Appanages"  —  St.  Louis  IX  —  Intellectual  revival  in  France  — 
(a)  the  monasteries;  (b)  in  the  schools;  (c)  Popes  and  councils  —  Innocent  II  and 
his  rival  Anacletus  II  —  Popes  in  exile  in  France  —  English  primates  in  France  — 
Paris  as  the  capital  —  Early  French  literature  —  French  intervention  in  papal 
affairs  and  in  Italy  —  Charles  of  Anjou  —  Charles,  Senator  of  Rome  —  Vacancy  in 
the  Papacy  —  Gregory  X  Pope  —  Election  of  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg  —  Council 
of  Lyons  —  Reconciliation  of  the  Greek  Church  —The  Conclave  —  Character  of 
Gregory  X  —  Charles  of  Anjou  as  Senator  of  Rome  —  The  Vespers  —  The  Colon- 
nas  —  Election  of  Peter  Murrone  the  Hermit  as  Celestine  V  —  Boniface  VIII  — 
Destruction  of  the  Colonnas'  power  —  The  Jubilee  —  Philip  the  Fair  —  Fall  of 
Boniface  VIII  —  The  Babylonish  captivity  at  Avignon  —  The  Knights  Templar  — 
The  order  suppressed  —  Death  of  Philip  the  Fair  and  Clement  V. 

The  rise  of  a  great  French  monarchy,  originating  with 
nominal  Kings  of  France,  masters  of  an  insignificant  duchy, 
who  eventually  consolidated  many  powerful  independent 
feudal  dominions  into  an  united  nation,  is  one  of  the  leading 
facts  in  medieval  history,  and  the  importance  of  its  influence 
upon  the  Western  Catholic  Church  can  hardly  be  overesti- 
mated; for,  by  the  commencement  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
the  Papacy,  having  ceased  to  fear  the  Empire  as  a  rival, 
found  a  master  in  the  King  of  France. 

Before,  however,  describing  the  progress  of  medieval 
France  towards  unity,  it  is  necessary  to  take  a  survey  of  the 
country  in  order  to  understand  the  heterogeneous  elements 
out  of  which  the  nation  was  ultimately  evolved.  By  the  close 
of  the  tenth  century  Gaul,  west  of  the  Rhone,  was  divided 
into  seven  great  lordships,  including  the  cities  of  Ghent, 
Bruges,  and  Lille.  On  the  northern  coast  were  Normandy, 
Brittany,  Champagne,  Aquitaine,  Gascony,  and  Toulouse; 
on  the  frontier  along  the  Rhone  was  Burgundy.  The  northern 
central    district    was    called    France.    This    included    Anjou, 

273 


274  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Maine,  Blois,  the  cities  of  Paris  and  Orleans  and  extended  to 
the  city  of  Reims.  The  later  Carolingians  had  virtually  no 
territory;  and,  with  the  disappearance  of  their  dynasty,  the 
kingdom  of  France  devolved  on  the  Capets,  the  first  members 
of  which,  despite  the  royal  title,  were  not  in  wealth,  in- 
fluence, or  extent  of  territory,  the  equals  of  some  of  the  great 
feudatories. 

When  Louis  VI  ascended  the  throne  in  1108  his  power 
could  not  compare  with  that  of  the  Duke  of  Normandy,  now 
King  of  England,  nor  with  the  Counts  of  Flanders,  Blois, 
Champagne  and  Anjou.  In  the  South,  the  royal  title  was 
purely  nominal;  indeed  it  was  not  without  a  strong  force  to 
protect  him  against  the  petty  barons  in  his  dominions  that  the 
King  of  France  could  make  a  journey  between  his  two  chief 
cities,  Orleans  and  Paris.  But  Louis,  called  by  his  subjects, 
first  "The  Wakeful,"  and  in  later  life  "the  Fat"  (le  Gros), 
had  three  powerful  allies,  the  Church,  the  citizens  of  the 
towns,  and  his  own  untiring  energy.  With  his  petty  resources 
it  is  marvellous  how  he  managed  to  hold  his  own;  but  the 
Church  steadily  supported  the  monarchy  as  did  the  rising 
commercial  towns.  Louis'  adviser  in  his  latter  days  was  Suger, 
the  politic  abbot  of  St.  Denis,  near  Paris,  who  continued  to 
watch  over  the  affairs  of  the  growing  Kingdom  with  unre- 
mitting care  during  the  first  years  of  the  long  reign  of  Louis 
VII  (the  Young). 

The  small  field,  on  which  Louis  VI  displayed  his  ability 
and  energy  as  a  ruler,  does  not  detract  from  the  greatness  of 
his  work.  The  very  fact  that  he  did  not  interfere  with  his  most 
powerful  feudatories  shows  him  to  be  possessed  of  statesman- 
like capacity;  for  he  preferred  to  consolidate  rather  than  to 
extend  his  authority.  With  the  support  of  Flanders  he  was 
able  to  hold  his  own  against  the  Count  of  Blois,  and  his  for- 
midable neighbour,  Henry  I  of  England,  who  since  the  battle 
of  Tinchebray  (1108)  was  also  Duke  of  Normandy.  Without 
relaxing  his  authority  over  the  Church  within  his  dominions 
Louis  proved  himself  the  champion  of  the  oppressed  monks 
and   clergy;   and   though   he  was   not   naturally  disposed   to 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  275 

favour  the  growing  independence  of  the  towns,  he  had  the 
wisdom  to  grant  many  charters  confirming  their  privileges. 

The  quarrel  between  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire  contrib- 
uted greatly  to  enhance  the  prestige  of  the  French  monarchy, 
and  Louis  VI  became  in  a  sense  a  new  Clovis,  the  defender 
of  the  Papacy  against  its  foes.  As  such  he  obtained  for  himself 
and  his  successors  the  title  of  Eldest  Son  of  the  Church. 

Just  before  his  death  Louis  VI  made  a  valuable  addition 
to  his  dominions  by  marrying  his  son  to  Eleanor,  heiress  of 
William  X  of  Aquitaine,  thus  uniting  to  the  petty  duchy  of 
the  Isle  of  France,  for  it  was  little  more,  a  large  territory  in 
the  southwest  extending  to  the  Pyrenees. 

Louis  VII  (11 37-1 1 80)  was  inferior  to  his  father  in  energy 
and  ability.  His  piety  so  wearied  Eleanor  that  she  obtained 
from  the  Church  a  dissolution  of  the  marriage  on  the  ground 
of  relationship,  and  flung  herself  into  the  arms  of  her  husband's 
great  rival,  Henry  II  of  England.  Her  vast  inheritance  made 
Henry  the  most  powerful  ruler  in  the  West,  the  head  of  a 
great  feudal  empire,  consisting  of  the  Kingdom  of  England, 
which  claimed  homage  from  the  King  of  the  Scots,  Normandy, 
Brittany,  and  nearly  half  of  modern  France.  Louis  VII's  un- 
warlike  reign  was  fortunately  long;  and  his  friendship  with 
the  Church  stood  him  in  good  stead.  He  made  use  of  his  op- 
portunities, such  as  Henry  IPs  dispute  with  Becket  and  the 
constant  quarrels  in  the  Plantagenet  household.  But  despite 
his  misfortunes  Henry  was  an  able  man  and  a  dangerous 
rival;  and  the  Kings  of  England  were  in  the  twelfth  century 
far  more  important  as  sovereigns  than  their  nominal  over- 
lords of  France. 

The  Plantagenet  empire  was  more  splendid  in  appearance 
than  in  reality.  Its  head  was  as  much  a  foreigner  in  Normandy 
as  he  was  in  England,  and  there  was  no  cohesion  between  his 
widespread  lordships.  Given  a  bad  king  of  England  and  an 
able  statesman  on  the  throne  of  France,  there  could  be  little 
doubt  as  to  the  result.  This  came  when  Philip  Augustus 
reigned  over  France  and  John  over  England. 

Philip   Augustus   (1 180-1223)   is  the   real  founder  of  the 


276  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

French  monarchy,  and  few  princes  have  played  the  game  of 
statescraft  more  skilfully.  His  general  policy  may  be  described 
as  espousing  the  cause  of  the  commonalty  against  the  nobles, 
and  biding  his  time.  Though  he  went  on  a  crusade,  he  shunned 
several  hazardous  enterprises,  and  allowed  others  to  engage  in 
them  whilst  he  reaped  the  benefit.  Although  he  incurred  the 
wrath  of  Innocent  III  by  his  repudiation  of  Ingeburge,  the 
daughter  of  the  King  of  Denmark,  and  drew  down  the  terrors 
of  an  interdict  upon  his  people,  he  was  generally  favoured  by 
the  clergy,  and  rose  to  power  by  their  assistance.  His  two 
great  successes  were  that,  without  taking  part  personally  in 
the  Albigensian  war,  and  allowing  Simon  de  Montfort  the 
credit,  and  for  a  while  the  profit,  he  ultimately  obtained  all 
the  benefits  of  the  conquest  of  Toulouse  for  his  family,  and  also 
that  he  availed  himself  so  well  of  the  crimes  and  blunders  of 
John  that  he  made  himself  virtually  master  of  much  of  the 
continental  inheritance  of  the  Plantagenets. 

Philip  Augustus  had  been  constantly  at  war  with  Henry  II, 
and  his  great  rival  was  Richard  I;  but  his  opportunity  came 
when  John  captured  Arthur,  the  son  of  his  elder  brother 
GeofFry  Plantagenet,  who  had  obtained  Anjou,  Brittany, 
Maine  and  Touraine,  and  had  hereditary  claims  on  the  crown 
of  England.  Arthur  had  taken  Mirabeau  where  Eleanor,  his 
grandmother,  was  residing.  She  refused  to  surrender,  and  sum- 
moned John  to  her  aid.  Arthur  was  imprisoned  and  confined 
in  the  strong  castle  of  Falaise.  As  he  refused  to  abandon  his 
claim  on  England,  John  removed  him  to  Rouen  and  no  more  is 
known  as  to  his  fate.  As  Arthur's  feudal  superior,  Philip  Au- 
gustus felt  bound  to  enquire  into  the  manner  of  his  death. 
Whether  John  was  formally  condemned  or  not  is  uncertain; 
but  Philip  invaded  his  dominions.  Normandy  was  rapidly 
overrun.  Anjou  and  Poitou  surrendered  to  the  French  King, 
who  speedily  possessed  himself  of  John's  towns  on  the  Loire. 
Thus,  owing  to  John's  misconduct,  the  most  flourishing  of  the 
northern  provinces  of  France  came  under  the  crown  (1202- 
1206). 

Then  followed  the  affair  of  the  election  of  Stephen  Langton 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  277 

to  Canterbury,  the  interdict,  and  the  summons  from  Innocent 
III  to  Philip  Augustus  to  possess  himself  of  the  English  throne, 
defeated  by  John's  complete  surrender  of  his  crown  to  the 
Pope  and  his  transformation  from  a  King  of  England,  under 
sentence  of  the  Church,  into  a  favoured  vassal  of  the  Papacy. 
Thus  enabled  to  defy  his  rival  of  France,  John  prepared  a 
most  formidable  combination  against  him  with  Otto,  the 
Emperor,  and  the  Count  of  Flanders.  Philip's  northern  do- 
minions were  invaded,  and  the  armies  met  at  Bouvines,  a 
small  village  between  Lille  and  Tournay.  The  Confederacy 
was  defeated  and  the  cause  of  Otto  ruined;  and  the  victory 
at  Bouvines  (1214)  made  the  King  of  France  the  greatest 
sovereign  in  Europe.  Philip  Augustus  even  felt  strong  enough 
to  send  his  son  Louis  at  the  invitation  of  the  English  barons  to 
claim  the  crown  of  their  country.  This  ambitious  project  was 
defeated  by  the  death  of  John  and  the  accession  of  the  youthful 
Henry  III. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  contrasting  the  attitude  of  the 
Kings  of  France  towards  the  Church  and  their  people  with 
that  of  the  English  sovereigns.  The  Plantagenets,  especially 
Richard  I  and  John,  regarded  their  kingdom  chiefly  as  a  place 
from  which  money  could  be  collected  to  further  their  projects 
elsewhere,  and  the  churchmen  they  prized  most  were  efficient 
business  men  who  could  be  paid  for  serving  them  out  of  the 
revenues  of  the  Church.  Their  barons,  at  first  foreigners  who 
despised  the  English,  were  thrust  by  oppression  into  alliance 
with  the  people,  whom  the  Church  could  never  afford  or  de- 
sire entirely  to  neglect.  Patriotism  in  consequence  became  the 
watchword  of  the  three  estates  of  the  realm,  among  whom  a 
national  sentiment  was  fostered.  It  was  otherwise  with  Philip 
Augustus  and  his  two  predecessors,  Louis  VI  and  VII,  who 
found  their  supporters  among  the  clergy  and  the  burgesses, 
whilst  the  nobles  were  disposed  to  stand  aloof  in  selfish  isola- 
tion. Thus,  whereas  in  England,  clergy,  nobles,  and  people 
combined  against  the  anti-national  policy  of  the  Crown,  in 
France  King,  clergy,  and  people  united  to  crush  the  separatist 
policy  of  the  great  feudatories.  By  the  time  of  the  death  of 


278  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Philip  Augustus  France  was  on  the  high  road  to  become  a 
strong  centralised  government;  but  his  son  and  successor, 
Louis  VIII  (1 223-1 226),  though  a  brave,  warlike,  and  politic 
prince,  undid  the  work  of  a  century  by  leaving  separate  feudal 
dominions  to  his  younger  children,  giving  to  his  second  son 
the  countship  of  Artois,  to  his  third  those  of  Anjou  and  Maine, 
and  to  his  fourth  Poitou  and  Auvergne.  This  policy  had  ruined 
the  older  dynasties  of  the  Franks, — and  the  "appanages," 
as  they  were  called,  created  a  new  feudal  system  in  place  of 
the  older.  To  this  many  of  the  later  troubles  of  France  were 
due,  as  were  the  subsequent  triumphs  of  the  English  at  a  later 
date.   But  for  the  present  the  progress  of  the  country  was 

steady. 

Royal  saints  are  seldom  a  blessing  to  their  country;  but 
St.  Louis  IX  (1 226-1 270)  is  an  exception  to  the  rule.  He  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  at  the  age  of  twelve;  and  the  country  was 
in  danger  of  a  period  of  feudal  anarchy  which  generally  ac- 
companied a  minority.  Fortunately  his  mother,  Blanche  of 
Castile,  proved  herself  more  than  capable  of  dealing  with  a 
recalcitrant  nobility.  For  ten  years  she  administered  affairs, 
disregarding  the  plots  of  her  adversaries,  and  the  slanders 
raised  against  her  character;  and,  even  when  her  son  had  as- 
sumed the  government,  she  continued  to  exercise  her  influence. 
Haughty  and  arbitrary  as  was  her  nature,  France  owes  her  a 
deep  debt  for  preserving  the  integrity  of  the  monarchy  at  a 
critical  period. 

By  the  time  St.  Louis  took  upon  himself  the  royal  authority, 
the  King  of  France  was  by  far  the  greatest  of  the  feudal 
owners  of  land.  Only  five  great  princes  now  remained.  The 
Dukes  of  Burgundy  and  Brittany,  the  Counts  of  Flanders  and 
Champagne,  together  with  the  King  of  England,  who  still 
occupied  Aquitaine  and  Gascony.  Except  the  last  named,  none 
of  these  was  capable  of  resisting  the  power  of  the  crown;  and 
throughout  France  great  royal  officers  were  appointed  to  look 
after  the  King's  interests  in  the  Baillages  and  Senechaussees, 
into  which  the  country  was  now  divided.  Even  the  King  of 
England  was  hardly  able  to  hold  his  own;  for  the  competent 


THE  FRENCH   MONARCHY  AND  THE   PAPACY  279 

piety  of  Louis  IX  was  more  serviceable  to  his  country  than  the 
feeble  virtue  of  Henry  III.  Despite  the  fact  of  his  disastrous 
participation  in  the  Crusades  (1 249-1 254),  his  capture  at 
Damietta  and  the  enormous  ransom  which  the  King  scrupu- 
lously paid,  France  prospered  under  Louis  and  his  mother 
Blanche.  This  was  greatly  due  to  the  moderation  and  strict 
sense  of  justice  displayed  by  the  King,  who  refused  to  take 
advantage  of  the  weakness  of  Henry  III,  and  would  be  no 
party  to  the  schemes  of  such  worldly  pontiffs  as  Innocent  IV 
and  his  successors  in  their  quarrel  with  the  Empire.  His  allow- 
ing his  brother  Charles  of  Anjou  to  accept  the  crown  of  Sicily 
was  one  of  the  few  errors  in  his  wise  and  straightforward 
policy.  In  his  severity  to  heretics  he  did  but  act  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  his  age;  and  even  if,  like  Frederic  II,  he  had 
accepted  Christianity  with  the  calmness  of  a  philosopher 
rather  than  the  fervour  of  a  saint,  he  would  not  have  been  less 
vigorous  against  them. 

Having  surveyed  the  wide  field  of  French  history  and 
shown  how  under  five  monarchs  a  realm  divided  and  subdi- 
vided into  feudal  principalities,  had  begun  to  be  welded  to- 
gether so  as  to  be  in  a  position  to  speak  with  authority  to  the 
world,  it  is  desirable  to  notice  some  of  the  reasons  for  the 
growing  importance  of  the  French  monarchy.  First  among 
these  stands  the  great  part  the  country  took  in  the  intellectual 
revival  in  its  monasteries,  and  their  schools  which  culminated 
in  the  University  of  Paris. 

It  was  in  France  that  the  great  revivals  of  monasticism 
occurred  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries.  Cluny,  under  its 
early  abbots,  reformed  the  ancient  rule  of  St.  Benedict,  by 
which  each  abbey  was  allowed  to  work  out  its  own  system. 
The  reformed  monasteries  were  federated  in  feudal  dependence 
on  the  great  abbey  which  formed  the  centre  of  administration 
of  a  logically  devised  rule.  Fleury  was  the  exemplar  of  the 
English  Benedictine  monasteries,  revived  by  St.  Dunstan, 
who  sought  his  inspiration  from  France.  Bee  in  Normandy 
became  not  only  a  model  of  monastic  discipline,  but  attracted 
the  two  most  learned  men  of  the  age  in  the  Italians,  Lanfranc 


280  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  Anselm,  who  found  the  atmosphere  of  Normandy  more 
congenial  for  learning  than  that  of  their  own  country.  Tours 
had  long  been  a  famous  school,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  eleventh 
century  pupils  from  all  parts  of  the  world  were  flocking  to 
hear  Berengar,  the  learned  deacon.  Citeaux  and  the  Cistercians, 
the  Puritans  of  Monasticism,  partly  owed  their  origin  to  the 
Englishman,  St.  Stephen  Harding;  but  the  Abbot  would  never 
have  been  known  as  "the  Abbot  of  Abbots"  but  for  the  wonder- 
ful impulse  the  genius  of  St.  Bernard  gave  to  the  whole  move- 
ment. Contemporary  with  Bernard  was  St.  Norbert,  the  founder 
of  the  Canons  of  Premontre.  Like  St.  Bruno,  the  founder  of  the 
Carthusians,  he  was  a  German,  but  it  was  in  France  that  his 
influence  was  felt;  for  France  has  always  been  receptive  of 
foreign  talent. 

Before  the  appearance  of  universities  the  monastic  schools 
of  France  proved  an  extraordinary  stimulus  to  learning.  The 
most  famous  were  Chartres,  Laon  and  the  great  Abbeys  in  or 
near  Paris.  The  fame  of  Chartres  dates  from  Fulbert  (d. 
1020),  who  continued  to  teach  after  he  had  become  its  bishop. 
Laon  was  celebrated  for  the  brothers  Anselm  (not  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury)  and  Ralph;  and  Paris  in  the  eleventh 
century  was  full  of  famous  teachers.  A  most  interesting  ac- 
count of  the  career  of  a  scholar  is  to  be  found  in  the  autobio- 
graphical notes  of  an  Englishman,  John  of  Salisbury,  who 
spent  twelve  years  in  going  from  teacher  to  teacher  in  France, 
principally  at  Chartres,  of  which  he  became  bishop,  and  Paris. 
John  is  described  as  one  of  the  most  correct  Latin  writers  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  a  characteristic  product  of  an  early 
French  education.1 

Bernard  and  Abelard,  the  two  great  rivals,  representing  the 
spirit  of  monastic  mysticism  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  restless 
enquiry  on  the  other,  are  both  typical  of  the  France  which 
arose  with  the  revival  of  civilization.  In  them  we  have  a  fore- 
shadowing of  the  history  of  religion  in  France,  fervent  piety 
combined  with  practical  ability — for  Bernard  was  the  virtual 

1  The  chapter  by  R.  L.  Poole,  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought 
(Ch.  VII),  should  be  consulted. 


THE   FRENCH   MONARCHY  AND  THE   PAPACY  28 1 

ruler  of  the  Christian  world  of  the  West — and  the  keen  spirit 
of  logic  which  shrinks  before  no  difficulty. 

But  France  during  this  period  of  growth  was  not  merely 
the  home  of  ideas,  whether  expressed  in  Monasticism — for 
that  was  the  one  thing  which  occupied  the  best  minds  in  the 
earlier  Middle  Ages — or  in  the  thirst  for  knowledge,  which  was 
so  keenly  felt  after  the  appearance  of  Abelard.  It  was  also  the 
home  of  the  oppressed,  especially  Popes  and  English  Archbishops. 

Indeed    some    of    the    most    important    councils    of    the 
twelfth   and   thirteenth   century  were   held  by  exiled  pontiffs 
in  or   on    the  border  of  France.  It  was  a  French  Pope  (Ur- 
ban II),  who  proclaimed   the   First   Crusade   in    1096   at  the 
Council   of  Clermont,   so  that   to   France   belongs  this  great 
enterprise    symbolical    of    the    awakening    of    Western    Eu- 
rope   after    the  long  night   of  the   Dark  Ages.   The  remark- 
able  papal  schism  when  Innocent  II  and  the  anti-pope  An- 
acletus  II,  elected  on  the  same  day  in  Rome  by  two  factions 
of  cardinals,  was  decided  in  France.  The  story  is  unique  in  the 
history  of  papal  elections.  When  Honorius  II  was  dying  in 
1 1 30,  it  was  known  that  a  member  of  the  powerful  and  wealthy 
family  of  the  Pierleone  would  have  a  majority  of  the  cardinals. 
This  the  minority,  like  all  minorities  professing  to  represent 
the    more    sensible    men   (saniores),  resolved  to  prevent.  Ac- 
cordingly they  almost  rushed  from  the  bedside  of  the  dead 
Pope  and  proclaimed  Innocent  II,  who  was  enthroned  the  very 
same  day,  but  later,  the  majority  of  the  Cardinals  chose  and 
placed  Pierleone  in  the  Papal  Chair  in  St.  Peter's  as  Anacletus 
II.  Innocent  II,  finding  he  had  not  even  the  support  of  the 
Frangipanis,  the  rivals  of  the  Pierleones,  fled  the  City  and  took 
refuge  in  France.  There  he  found  an  ally  more  powerful  than 
his  Roman  enemies.  His  cause  was  enthusiastically  espoused  by 
the  great  French  monk  and  mystic  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux, 
the  glory  of  the  Cistercian  Order.  A  more  difficult  case  to  de- 
cide it  would  be  hard  to  discover.  Anacletus  had  the  majority 
on  his  side.  Innocent,  though  he  could  claim  priority  of  elec- 
tion by  a  few  hours,  was  chosen  in  a  clandestine  and  irregular 
manner.    But    a   cause   opposed   by   St.    Bernard   was    almost 


282  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

necessarily  lost.  The  Jewish  birth  of  Anacletus  was  remembered, 
his  family  were  declared  to  have  acquired  their  wealth  by  usury, 
their  fidelity  to  Gregory  VII  and  the  papal  interests  was  for- 
gotten and  Innocent  II  has  gone  down  to  posterity  as  lawful 
Pope  and  Anacletus  II  as  a  usurper. 

As  exiles  fighting  a  desperate  battle  with  the  Empire, 
France  welcomed  the  Popes  with  open  arms.  There  they  held 
their  councils,  inspired  crusades,  issued  commands  for  the 
Christian  world,  dictated  terms  of  alliance  to  the  Greeks.  In 
their  direst  poverty  the  French  episcopate  supplied  them  with 
the  necessary  means.  But  the  French  Kings,  since  Louis  VI, 
never  allowed  encroachments  on  their  prerogatives;  and  even 
when  under  just  papal  displeasure,  they  never  escaped  ex- 
communication by  a  journey  to  Canossa,  or  by  doing  homage 
for  their  crown.  Louis  IX,  with  all  his  devotion,  never  forgot 
what  was  due  to  his  position  as  King  of  France,  and  kept  the 
control  of  the  clergy  firmly  in  his  hands. 

Three  of  the  most  eminent  English  primates,  St.  Thomas 
Becket,  Stephen  Langton  and  St.  Edmund  Rich,  found  a  hos- 
pitable reception  in  France  when  their  own  country  would  not 
keep  them.  All  three  were  welcomed  at  Pontigny  near  Sens, 
whither  Becket  betook  himself  to  lay  his  case  before  Alexander 
III,  and  in  somewhat  theatrical  fashion  to  offer  his  resignation 
of  the  See  of  Canterbury  to  the  Pontiff.  Pontigny  was  a  par- 
ticularly appropriate  place  for  persecuted  English  primates  to 
take  refuge  in,  as  it  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  Citeaux,  the 
monastery  for  which  their  countrymen  St.  Stephen  Harding 
had  done  so  much.  Here  Becket  tried  at  intervals  to  change  the 
magnificence  and  luxury  to  which  as  Chancellor  and  as  Arch- 
bishop he  had  been  accustomed,  for  the  severity  of  the  Cister- 
cian discipline,  often  relapsing,  however,  into  his  old  pursuits 
and  habits.  The  exiled  Pope  Alexander  III  found  in  the  fugitive 
Archbishop  a  most  embarrassing  neighbour,  and  Louis  VII  a 
guest  whose  presence  was  as  welcome  to  him  as  it  was  dis- 
pleasing to  his  rival  Henry  II  of  England. 

At   Pontigny   Stephen   Langton   remained  when  John   re- 
fused to  receive  him  at  Canterbury,  and  England  lay  under  the 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  283 

interdict  of  Innocent  III.  Here  the  great  Archbishop  and  pa- 
triot calmly  pursued  his  biblical  studies,  till  the  time  should 
come  for  him  to  play  his  part  in  the  politics  of  his  native 
country,  where  he  was  destined  to  do  more  benefit  by  his  brave 
and  independent  life,  than  Becket  by  his  spectacular  but 
heroic  death. 

Very  different  from  either  of  the  above  was  the  gentle  and 
saintly  Edmund  Rich,  who  left  England  shortly  before  his 
death  in  despair  at  the  condition  of  the  country.  He  was  of- 
fered the  house  which  Becket  had  occupied,  but  preferred  the 
simple  cell  of  a  Cistercian  monk.  He  died  in  1240,  one  of  the 
most  scholarly  and  high-minded  men  who  ever  sat  in  the  Chair 
of  St.  Augustine,  and  received  the  supreme  honour  of  canoni- 
zation. 

The  intellectual  centre  which  drew  foreigners  to  France 
from  every  part  of  the  world  was  Paris.  Originally  it  was  not 
a  city  of  the  first  rank,  as  is  shown  from  the  fact  that  it  was  not 
the  seat  of  an  archbishop,  its  bishop  being  a  suffragan  in  the 
province  of  Sens.  But  under  the  kings  we  have  been  enumer- 
ating it  developed  rapidly  and  its  prosperity  kept  pace  with 
the  royal  power  of  France.  It  owed  much  to  the  great  abbeys  in 
and  around  it.  Of  these  the  most  famous  and  sumptuous  was 
that  of  St.  Denys  (believed  to  be  Dionysius  the  Areopagite), 
the  burial  place  of  the  kings  of  France,  the  royal  abbey  par 
excellence,  where  the  oriflamme  was  kept.  There  Louis  VI 
and  Louis  VII  were  educated.  It  was  about  four  miles  north  of 
Paris  on  a  bend  of  the  Seine.  Nearer  the  city  were  the  two 
monasteries  of  St.  Germanus,  and,  overlooking  it  on  the 
mount  south  of  the  Seine,  that  of  St.  Genevieve,  the  patron 
saint  of  Paris,  who  had  saved  the  town  in  the  days  of  Attila. 
The  original  medieval  city  was  on  the  island  of  the  Seine 
where  Notre  Dame  (the  present  building  dates  from  the  end 
of  the  twelfth  century)  stands.  On  either  side  of  the  river 
houses  began  to  be  built,  on  the  north  for  the  growing  com- 
merce, and  on  the  south,  for  the  influx  of  students  first  to  the 
Cathedral  School  and  St.  Genevieve,  and  later  to  the  Uni- 
versity. Thus  arose  the  famous  Latin  quarter  of  Paris.  The 


284  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

three  divisions  of  the  City  from  north  to  south  were  the 
Ville,  the  Cite  and  the  University. 

Each  successive  monarch  contributed  to  the  enrichment  of 
Paris,  but  the  two  who  did  most  were  Philip  Augustus  and  his 
grandson  St.  Louis  IX.  Its  peculiar  influence  on  France  has 
been  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  not  merely  as  a  residence  of 
the  kings  or  as  a  commercial  mart  that  Paris  became  im- 
portant, but  because  it  had  become  through  its  schools  the  in- 
tellectual heart  of  France. 

The  development  of  France  is  further  seen  in  its  literature. 
During  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  the  language  was 
assuming  its  present  form.  Beginning  with  poetry  there  was 
an  output,  considerable  at  any  rate  in  volume,  from  the  close 
of  the  eleventh  century.  According  to  the  twelfth  century 
Norman  poet  Wace,  the  Conqueror's  minstrel  sang,  as  he  rode 
before  the  Duke  to  fight  at  Hastings,  of  Charlemagne,  Roland 
and  Oliver,  the  heroes  of  the  "Song  of  Roland,"  the  greatest 
of  the  Romans,  earlier  known  as  Chansons  de  Geste  (Songs 
of  Deeds).  In  the  south  there  were  the  Troubadours  with 
their  elaborated  lyrics,  and  their  fantastic  laws  of  love, 
yet  to  these  we  owe  Dante's  romantic  adoration  of  Bea- 
trice. The  story  of  the  "Holy  Grail,"  the  "Golden  Legend," 
the  "Romance  of  the  Rose,"  show  the  variety  of  the  subjects 
touched  on  by  the  early  French  poets.  But  poetry  and  song  are 
the  beginnings  of  a  literature;  and  already  the  French  language 
was  being  used  for  the  more  difficult  art  of  historic  prose.  The 
capture  of  Constantinople  in  1204  called  forth  the  narrative 
of  Godfrey  of  Villehardoin,  and  the  virtues  of  Louis  IX  in- 
duced another  French  noble,  the  Sieur  de  Joinville,  to  write 
his  reminiscences  of  the  Good  King  in  a  work  "which  may  be 
fairly  counted  among  the  memorable  biographies  of  European 
literature."  1  By  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century  French 
was  a  literary  language,  and  being  that  of  the  nobility  of 
England,  had  an  influence  on  the  formation  of  English  litera- 
ture. Italy  owes  its  national  renaissance  greatly  to  the  impulse 
first  given  by  France. 

1  Wendell,  The  Tradition  of  European  Literature,  p.  546. 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  285 

It  is  now  time  to  consider  in  more  detail  the  influence  of 
the  French  upon  the  Papacy  from  the  time  of  the  annihilation 
of  the  Hohenstaufens  down  to  the  tragic  humiliation  and  death 
of  Boniface  VIII  in  1303.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Urban 
IV,  a  Frenchman,  was  the  Pope  who  gave  the  crown  of  Sicily 
to  Charles  of  Anjou.  He  ascended  the  papal  throne  in  1261, 
and  from  this  time  to  the  election  of  Boniface  VIII  in  1294, 
there  were  eleven  popes  and  the  see  was  vacant  for  two  long 
periods  aggregating  five  years  and  eight  months.  With  short- 
lived popes  and  anarchy  in  the  city,  the  control  of  the  Holy 
See  was  at  the  mercy  of  any  ambitious  prince  who  was  on  the 
spot. 

The  policy  of  Charles  of  Anjou,  the  youngest  brother  of 
St.  Louis,  was  to  make  French  influence  supreme  in  Italy;  and, 
from  thence,  to  found  a  great  empire  in  the  Mediterranean, 
using  the  Papacy  as  an  instrument  to  carve  out  for  himself 
the  dominion  of  the  civilized  world.  Far  abler  than  his  brother, 
Charles  not  only  entertained  great  projects,  but  showed  con- 
summate skill  in  carrying  them  out.  A  better  diplomat  than 
Frederic  II,  he  constantly  posed,  whilst  keeping  an  iron  hand 
on  the  Papacy,  as  the  faithful  friend  of  the  Church.  The 
battles  of  Benevento  and  Tagliacozzo  proved  him  to  be  one 
of  the  greatest  captains  of  his  age,  and,  when  one  considers 
the  disadvantages  under  which  he  started  on  his  enterprise, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  admire  his  ability.  The  sole  weakness  he 
displayed  was  due  to  his  cold  calculating  selfishness,  and  entire 
lack  of  generosity  or  idealism  of  any  kind.  Unlike  his  brother, 
St.  Louis,  who  made  France  a  great  power  by  the  sheer  force 
of  his  goodness  and  transparent  honesty  of  purpose,  Charles 
played  a  bold  and  unscrupulous  game.  He  avoided  all  the 
mistakes  of  Frederic  II  by  maintaining  his  position  as  the 
ally  and  friend  of  every  Pope,  and  gave  no  cause  for  suspicion 
of  his  orthodoxy  by  favouring  any  of  his  subjects,  treating 
the  Latins,  Greeks  and  Saracens  in  his  Sicilian  kingdom  with 
impartial  cruelty.  Nor,  having  got  the  popes  into  his  hand 
did  he  ever  let  them  have  the  power  to  injure  him.  He  was 
also  fortunate  in  having,  with  one  exception,  no  strong  pope, 


286  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

owing  to  the  shortness  of  the  reigns  of  the  eight  who  held  the 
See,  from  the  time  of  his  being  summoned  to  Rome  till  his 
death  (1261-1285). 

Charles  did  not  come  to  Italy  till  1265,  but  he  had  made  it 
a  condition  that  he  should  be  appointed  Senator  of  Rome,  an 
office  which  the  Romans,  when  struggling  to  become  an  in- 
dependent republic,  had  formerly  bestowed  on  a  citizen,  but 
was  now  being  given  to  powerful  foreign  patrons.  After  many 
negotiations  as  to  whether  he  was  to  be  Senator  for  life,  or 
only  till  he  became  King  of  Sicily,  it  was  arranged  that  it 
should  be  a  temporary  appointment,  though  Charles  was 
evidently  resolved  to  use  his  authority  in  Rome  as  a  lever,  if 
necessary,  against  the  Pope.  For  a  time,  however,  the  Senator- 
ship  passed  to  Don  Arrigo  of  Castile,  but  Charles,  after  his 
victories,  resumed  the  position  and  became  Master  of  the 
City.  His  conquest  of  Sicily,  which  has  already  been  related, 
left  the  French  influence  supreme  in  all  papal  affairs. 

After  the  battle  of  Tagliacozzo  the  Roman  See  was  vacant 
for  more  than  three  years  (November  29, 1268-March  27, 1272), 
during  which  period  the  Christian  world  in  the  West  was  with- 
out Emperor  or  Pope.  The  Latin  Empire  in  Constantinople 
had  also  collapsed;  and  in  1270  St.  Louis  had  gone  on  his  last 
crusade  which  by  the  influence  of  his  brother  had  been  diverted 
to  Tunis,  in  order  to  assure  the  tribute  due  to  Charles  as  King 
of  Sicily.  In  1271  Charles  with  the  new  King  of  France,  Philip 
III — St.  Louis  having  died  of  the  plague  in  Tunis — was  in 
Rome.  With  them  was  an  English  prince,  Henry,  son  of  Richard, 
the  Duke  of  Cornwall,  and  King  of  the  Romans.  Charles's 
Vicar  in  Tuscany  was  the  son  of  Simon  de  Montfort;  and  de- 
termined to  avenge  the  death  of  his  father  upon  the  family  of 
his  enemy,  he  stabbed  Henry  before  the  altar  and  dragged  his 
body  out  of  the  church  in  the  presence  of  the  two  Kings 
and  the  Cardinals.  This  foul  and  disgraceful  murder  was  al- 
most unpunished.  Guido  de  Montfort  was  tried,  but  he  was 
one  of  the  best  of  Charles's  captains,  and  nothing  serious 
happened  to  him.  He  was,  it  is  true,  deprived  of  his  office, 
but  was  soon  restored  to  favour.  Even  his  character  did  not 


THE  FRENCH   MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  287 

suffer,  for  he  held  the  reputation  of  being  a  man  of  great 
integrity.  This  throws  a  light  on  the  tone  of  the  period;  and  it 
is  even  possible  that  the  slaying  of  an  innocent  prince  at  the 
altar  for  a  wrong  done  to  the  father  of  the  murderer  by  the 
kindred  of  his  victim,  redounded  rather  to  Guido's  credit  in 
the  estimation  of  his  contemporaries. 

But  the  crime  may  have  reacted  upon  Guido's  master.  At 
any  rate,  when  St.  Bonaventure  exhorted  the  Cardinals  to  put 
an  end  to  the  scandal  of  the  vacancy  of  the  Roman  See,  they 
elected,  not  a  nominee  of  Charles,  but  an  Italian  of  the  house 
of  Visconti,  who  was  Archdeacon  of  Liege  and  was  at  this  time 
in  the  Holy  Land  with  Edward  I  of  England.  He  was  conse- 
crated in  St.  Peter's  in  the  spring  of  1272  and  took  the  title  of 
Gregory  X.  Richard  of  Cornwall,  the  titular  King  of  the 
Romans,  died  a  few  days  after  the  accession  of  the  new  Pope. 

For  nearly  four  years  (1 272-1276)  there  was  peace  under 
Gregory  X,  who,  though  not  by  any  means  a  brilliant  man, 
was  eminently  wise  and  pacific.  Without  a  quarrel  he  was  able 
to  curb  the  ambition  of  Charles  to  become  Emperor,  by  sanc- 
tioning the  choice  of  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg  as  King  of  the 
Romans  by  the  German  princes,  who  were  determined  not  to 
elect  a  foreigner.  Thus  the  Papacy  was  once  more  reconciled 
to  the  Empire,  and  the  new  Sovereign,  more  anxious  for  peace 
at  home  than  for  supremacy  in  Italy,  wisely  submitted  to  the 
spiritual  authority  of  Rome.  Gregory  X  was  most  anxious  to 
crown  so  dutiful  a  son  of  the  Church  as  Emperor.  This,  how- 
ever,  he  was   not   destined  to   do,   and   Rudolph  was   never 

crowned. 

Like  his  predecessors,  Gregory  X  went  to  Lyons,  on  the 
borders  of  the  French  kingdom,  to  hold  the  memorable  Council 
of  1274.  Here  were  assembled  representatives  of  all  parts  of 
Christendom.  The  bishops  alone  numbered  over  five  hundred. 
The  King  of  Aragon  was  present  in  person,  and  the  ambassa- 
dors of  Germany,  France,  England,  and  Sicily.  The  East  sent 
the  Latin  patriarchs  of  Constantinople  and  Antioch,  and  the 
Orthodox  Greek  Church  despatched  delegates  to  negotiate  a 
union  with  the  Roman  See.  More  striking,  however,  was  the 


288  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

appearance  of  sixteen  Tartars  with  a  letter  from  their  Khan, 
requesting  an  alliance  against  the  Moslems.  No  council  had 
been  so  largely  attended  as  this,  which  is  known  as  the  Second 
General  Council  of  Lyons  and  is  reckoned  by  the  Roman 
Church  as  the  Fourteenth  General  Council. 

In  1 261  Michael  VIII  (Paleologus),  having  seized  the  Em- 
pire of  the  Lascarids  at  Nicaea,  drove  Baldwin  and  the  Latins 
out  of  Constantinople.  The  restored  Greek  Empire  was  in  a 
difficult  position.  Its  capital  was  almost  in  ruins,  owing  to  the 
brutal  rapacity  of  the  invaders,  who  had  occupied  it  for  fifty- 
seven  years.  There  was  the  hostility  of  the  Despot  of  Epirus, 
a  rival  for  the  imperial  dignity,  and  also  of  the  Latin  princes 
of  Achaia,  and  in  addition  Charles  of  Anjou  was  ready  to  head 
a  crusade  against  Michael  VIII  in  the  interest  of  Baldwin,  or 
more  probably  of  himself.  The  Greek  Emperor,  to  avert  these 
dangers,  threw  himself  upon  the  protection  of  the  Pope, 
promised  to  recognise  him  as  Head  of  the  Church  and  to  ac- 
cept the  Creed  with  the  Latin  addition  of  the  double  procession 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  At  the  Council,  therefore,  the  union  of  the 
Latin  and  Greek  Church  was  openly  decreed  by  the  surrender 
of  all  the  pretensions  of  Constantinople  to  Rome.  The  Creed 
was  sung  at  the  Mass  both  in  Latin  and  Greek  with  the  Filioque 
clause,  and  a  peace  was  arranged  which  proved,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  only  temporary.  The  majority  of  the  Orthodox 
indignantly  rejected  the  accommodation  between  Michael  and 
the  heretical  West,  and  the  schism  continued  unhealed  to  the 
serious  detriment  of  the  cause  of  Christianity. 

More  enduring  was  the  arrangement  of  the  papal  elections 
made  by  the  Council  of  Lyons. 

Wherever  the  Pope  may  happen  to  die,  the  Cardinals  on 
the  spot  are  to  wait  for  eight  days  for  the  arrival  of  absentees. 
At  the  expiration  of  that  time,  whether  they  come  or  not, 
those  present  are  to  assemble  in  the  palace  of  the  pontiff  with 
only  one,  or  at  most  two  attendants,  whether  clergymen  or 
laymen.  They  are  to  live  together  and  no  one  is  to  be  admitted, 
nor  may  the  cardinals  be  spoken  to  or  receive  any  messages. 
There  is  to  be  only  one  entrance  to  the  Conclave  through 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  289 

which  the  meals  are  to  be  delivered.  If  at  the  end  of  three  days 
the  Cardinals  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  election  of  a  Pope,  their 
meals  are  to  be  reduced  to  one  a  day.  At  the  end  of  five  days 
nothing  but  bread,  water,  and  wine  is  to  be  supplied. 

This  is  the  celebrated  law  of  the  Conclave  intended  to  put 
an  end  to  the  scandal  of  long  vacancies  of  the  papal  Chair, 
such  as  had  preceded  the  election  of  Gregory  X.  The  Canon 
proved  easier  to  enact  than  to  enforce;  for  about  sixteen  years 
after  the  death  of  Gregory  X,  there  was  no  pope  for  one  period 
of  two  years.  It,  however,  laid  down  the  principle  on  which 
papal  elections  have  subsequently  been  conducted. 

The  Council  deserves  attention  at  this  juncture,  now  that 
we  are  considering  the  subject  of  French  influence  on  the 
Papacy.  In  two  centuries,  from  1074  to  1274,  popes  had  pre- 
sided over  about  twenty-one  councils,  no  less  than  ten  of 
which  were  held  in  or  close  to  France,  two  of  these  being 
General  Councils.  Only  five  times  within  that  period  had  it 
been  possible  to  assemble  the  bishops  at  Rome.  The  great 
success  of  the  Second  Council  of  Lyons  must  have  been  a 
conclusive  proof  that  the  papal  authority  could  be  exercised 
in  more  security  on  the  Rhone  than  on  the  Tiber,  and  have 
caused  the  popes  to  wonder  whether  it  would  not  be  advisable 
to  make  their  home  outside  a  city  so  tumultuous  and  ungov- 
ernable as  Rome. 

Gregory  X  died  in  January,  1276,  after  a  short  but  success- 
ful pontificate.  A  wise  and  conciliatory  man  he  had  achieved 
much.  Not  only  had  he  taken  a  part  in  restoring  the  Empire, 
and  made  it  submissive  to  the  Church;  but  he  had  thwarted 
the  unscrupulous  ambitions  of  Charles  of  Anjou  so  skilfully 
that  it  was  impossible  for  him  openly  to  resent  the  diplomacy 
of  the  Pope.  Gregory  had  accepted  the  inevitable  by  recog- 
nising that  the  Latin  Empire  in  Constantinople  was  imprac- 
ticable, and  had  made  Michael  Palaeologus  accept  the  papal 
supremacy  over  Greek  Christendom.  The  Second  General 
Council  of  Lyons  in  1274  had  been  remarkable  for  an  unpre- 
cedented attendance  of  prelates  representative  of  the  Christian 
world,  and  had  effected  important  reforms.  The  law  of  the 


290  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Conclave  alone  is  sufficient  to  make  this  pontificate  forever 
memorable;  but  it  seems  even  more  worthy  of  record  for  the 
spirit  in  which  the  Pope  acted  during  a  very  critical  period. 

Within  a  year  of  Gregory  X's  death  there  were  no  less 
than  three  popes  elected.  As  Senator  of  Rome  Charles  did  all 
in  his  power  to  force  a  countryman  of  his  own  upon  the  Church. 
He  enforced  the  new  law  of  the  Conclave  with  all  its  rigour 
upon  the  Cardinals,  who  opposed   him   and  endeavoured  to 
starve   them    into    submission,   whilst    his    own    friends   were 
mysteriously  supplied  with  food.   But  Italian  finesse  proved 
superior  to  the  rough  methods  of  the  French  prince,  and  on 
December  26,  1277,  an  uncompromising  enemy  was  placed  on 
the  papal  throne  in  Nicholas  III,  of  the  noble  house  of  the 
Orsini,  the  son  of  Matthew  Rubeus,  who  had  been  renowned 
as  Senator  of  Rome.  Nicholas  skilfully  played  off  Rudolph  of 
Hapsburg  on  Charles,   and   succeeded  in   making  one  of  his 
own  family  Senator  of  Rome.  He  is  one  of  the  famous  early 
papal  nepotists,  and  though  he  strove  for  the  rights  of  his  See, 
he  was  at  least  as  anxious  to  advance  the  family  of  the  Orsini. 
He  has  been  condemned  as  guilty  of  Simony,  for  which  reason 
Dante  places  him  in  hell,  awaiting  the  arrival  of  that  more 
flagrant  offender,  Pope  Boniface  VIII. 

Martin  IV,  the  next  pope,  was  a  Frenchman  and  a  mere 
tool  in  the  hands  of  Charles,  whose  power  in  Italy  was  now 
almost  unlimited.  But  in  1282  the  Sicilian  Vespers  deprived 
the  house  of  Anjou  of  half  its  dominions,  and  the  Crown  of 
Sicily  was  offered  to  Peter  of  Aragon,  whose  wife  Constance 
was  the  daughter  of  Manfred.  Charles  and  Martin  died  in  the 

year  1285. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  here  to  enter  into  a  detailed  account 
of  the  next  few  years,  which,  however,  were  notable  for  the  rise 
to  great  power  of  the  Colonnas,  the  most  enduring  of  all 
medieval  nobility  of  Rome.  This  family  had  embraced  the 
side  of  the  Ghibelline  anticlerical  party,  and  were  about  to  ex- 
perience the  fatal  consequences  of  provoking  a  vindictive 
pope,  and  the  satisfaction  of  making  their  enemy  drink  the 
cup  of  humiliation  to  its  dregs. 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  29 1 

For  two  years,  after  the  death  of  Nicholas  IV,  namely, 
from  April,  1292,  to  August,  1294,  there  was  no  pope.  The 
cardinals  then  came  to  an  extraordinary  decision  to  place  a 
saint  in  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter.  They  chose  Peter  Murrone,  a 
hermit,  noted  for  his  austerity,  and  forced  him  against  his 
will  to  be  consecrated  Pope  as  Celestine  V.  The  bewildered 
anchoret  struggled  in  vain  to  discharge  his  duties,  but,  con- 
scious of  his  own  utter  helplessness,  he  issued  a  decree  making 
it  lawful  for  a  pope  to  resign  the  triple  crown,  and  retired 
among  his  hermits.  But  it  was  as  dangerous  to  allow  an  ex- 
pope  who  might  become  a  centre  of  disaffection  to  remain  at 
large,  as  it  had  been  to  permit  a  Roman  emperor  to  retire; 
and  Peter  Murrone  was  kept  in  strict  confinement  by  his 
successor  Boniface  VIII. 

Benedict  Gaetano  was  famous  for  learning  and  ability,  and 
was  fully  resolved  to  restore  the  unlimited  power  of  the 
Papacy.  He  was  well  on  to  eighty  when  he  was  elected  and  yet 
showed  a  vigour  comparable  to  that  displayed  by  Gregory  IX. 
In  his  actions  Boniface  VIII  was  resolved  to  show  that  he  was 
no  follower  of  the  deposed  and  persecuted  Celestine  V.  He  en- 
tered Rome  amid  the  acclamation  of  the  nobles  and  people. 
Two  Kings,  Charles  II  of  Naples  and  his  nephew  Charles 
Martel  of  Hungary,  walked  beside  his  white  palfrey  and  waited 
on  him  at  the  coronation  banquet. 

Boniface  had  a  consistent  policy  in  regard  to  his  own 
family;  and  in  this  he  followed  Nicholas  III.  It  seems  that  in 
this  century  the  most  necessary  support  to  a  successful  ponti- 
ficate was  the  powerful  influence  of  kinsmen.  The  Gaetani 
were  able  and  daring;  and  the  Pope  greatly  strengthened  his 
position  by  giving  them  lordships  in  the  States  of  the  Church. 
The  rise  of  a  new  and  powerful  house  alarmed  the  Colonnas; 
and,  infuriated  at  the  deposition  of  two  Cardinals  of  their 
family,  they  allied  themselves  with  the  mystic  Jacopone  da 
Todi  and  the  Celestines,  as  those  who  declared  that  Peter 
Murrone  was  still  Pope,  were  called.  Boniface  VIII  at  once  ex- 
communicated the  family  and  proclaimed  a  crusade  against 
the  dominions  of  the  Colonnas.  Their  fortresses  were  taken; 


292  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

finally  in  September,  1298,  their  stronghold,  the  city  of  Pales- 
trina,  was  utterly  laid  waste  as  by  an  army  of  barbarians.  The 
Colonnas  were  forced  to  wander  homeless  in  the  world.  Stephen 
Colonna,  the  head  of  the  family,  which  had  been  preeminent 
among  the  Roman  nobility,  fled  to  France  and  even  as  far  as 
England.  Jacopone  da  Todi  was  doomed  to  a  close  prison. 
Sciarra  Colonna,  the  fiercest  of  the  family,  escaped,  after 
taking  refuge  in  woods  and  marshes,  and  was  destined  to  exact 
a  terrible  penalty  from  the  enemy  of  his  house. 

The  behaviour  of  Boniface  VIII  caused  as  much  indigna- 
tion as  had  that  of  Innocent  IV.  Dante  condemns  the  crime  of 
the  destruction  of  Palestrina  and  the  perfidy  of  the  Pope  to- 
wards the  Colonnas.  The  terrible  vindictiveness  of  the  stern 
old  man  towards  Christians,  whose  crime  was  that  they  dis- 
puted the  ascendancy  of  his  family,  shocked  the  best  minds 
of  the  age  and  Dante  foretells  for  Boniface  VIII  a  place  in  hell 
among  the  followers  of  Simon  Magus.  But  the  year  1300  was 
destined  to  make  men  forget  the  rapacity  and  violence  of  the 
papal  policy,  and  to  exalt  the  pope  above  all  mortals. 

Ancient  Rome  had  celebrated  Ludi  saculares;  and  the 
thousandth  year  of  the  foundation  had  been  commemorated 
with  great  splendour  by  Philip  the  Arabian.  The  thousandth 
year  of  the  Christian  Era  had  been  ushered  in  by  expectations 
of  the  end  of  the  world,  and  it  was  now  decided  to  make  the 
thirteen  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Christ  the  occa- 
sion of  a  Jubilee.  The  Pope  proclaimed  remission  of  sins  to  all 
who  should  visit  the  basilicas  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  ex- 
cepting from  the  indulgence  Frederic  of  Aragon,  who  held 
Sicily  in  despite  of  the  Church,  the  Colonnas,  and  all  who  traded 
with  the  Saracens.  It  was  a  magnificent  success.  The  stream 
of  pilgrims  was  unceasing,  the  City  was  well  policed,  food  was 
plentiful  and  cheap,  lodgings  naturally  expensive.  The  Romans 
were  never  so  happy  as  in  this  year.  Money  flowed  on  every 
side.  Smiling  priests  stood  by  the  altars,  rakes  (rastelli)  in 
hand,  and  raked  in  the  coins  as  the  pious  made  their  offerings. 
The  Pope's  enemies  declared  that  he  had  invented  the  jubilee 
solely  in  order  to  make  the  money  he  so  sorely  needed  to  re- 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  293 

cover  his  lordship  over  Sicily.  It  was,  however,  noticed  that  no 
princes  and  few  rich  men  came  to  Rome  on  this  occasion,  and 
that  the  pilgrims  were  as  a  rule  poor.  The  day  had  passed  when 
such  an  appeal  would  have  drawn  Kings  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  Yet  a  greater  man  than  any  monarch  of  the  time  was 
present  at  Rome  in  Dante;  and  Villani,  the  Italian  historian 
of  his  native  Florence,  was  also  among  the  pilgrim  throng. 
Boniface  VIII  in  this  supreme  hour  of  triumph,  when  he  seemed 
to  the  people  and  to  himself  as  more  than  human,  could  hardly 
have  suspected  that  among  the  adoring  crowd  was  a  man  who 
would  truly  bestow  upon  him  the  gift  of  immortality,  an  im- 
mortality of  infamy. 

The  Pope  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  power  and  his  ar- 
rogance knew  no  bounds.  He  claimed  to  be  the  ruler  of  the 
world,  Emperor  and  Pope.  He  declared  all  kings  his  subjects, 
he  ordered  the  clergy  to  pay  no  tax  without  his  consent,  he 
pronounced  it  necessary  to  salvation  that  every  human 
creature  should  be  subject  to  the  Pope. 

In  Philip  IV  of  France  (1285-13 14),  surnamed  "the  Fair," 
the  new  age  seemed  incarnate.  In  many  respects  he  was  sin- 
gularly like  his  rival  and  contemporary  Edward  I  of  England. 
He  is  the  first  French  anti-clericalist.  His  policy  was  to  nation- 
alize the  Church  by  placing  it  under  the  crown.  But  Philip's 
weapon  was,  not  the  sword,  but  the  law.  His  most  powerful 
assistants  were  the  great  feudal  lawyers  of  France.  Every  step 
he  took  he  justified  as  legal,  and,  even  if  he  strained  the  law, 
he  honoured  it.  Boniface  VIII  endeavoured  to  counter  Philip's 
clerical  policy  by  his  famous  Bull  Clericis  Laicos  forbidding 
the  clergy  to  pay  taxes  without  the  consent  of  the  Pope  (1296); 
and  throughout  his  pontificate  the  dispute  as  to  the  rights  of 
the  Papacy  in  France  continued.  The  lawyers  Pierre  Flotte, 
Plasian  and  Nogaret  advised  the  King  at  every  step.  Boniface 
issued  bulls  like  the  Ausculta  Fill  in  which,  under  the  dignified 
tone  of  a  pastor  and  a  father,  the  claims  of  Rome  were  pushed 
to  the  utmost.  The  King's  lawyers  retorted  with  charges  against 
the  Pope,  accusing  him  of  heresy,  and  of  crimes,  which,  con- 
sidering his  age,  were  absurd  on  the  face  of  them.  In  1303  the 


294  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

crisis  came.  Philip  the  Fair  did  not,  like  the  German  Emperors, 
march  into  Italy  at  the  head  of  an  army;  he  sent  William  of 
Nogaret  with  plenty  of  money  to  corrupt  the  adherents  of  the 
pontiff.  Accompanied  by  Sciarra  Colonna  and  a  few  troops, 
the  French  King's  agent  entered  Boniface's  native  Anagni, 
where  the  Pope  then  was.  The  people  deserted  him;  his  palace 
was  stormed;  the  cardinals  fled.  Dressed  in  his  papal  robes 
Boniface  VIII  sat  on  his  throne,  prepared  to  die.  Sciarra 
Colonna  would  have  slain  him:  it  is  said  that  he  even  struck 
the  Pope.  Nogaret  interfered  and  Boniface  was  arrested,  and 
then  released.  He  went  to  Rome  only  to  find  himself  in  the 
hands  of  the  Orsini.  Maddened  with  rage  he  shut  himself  up 
in  his  room,  and  is  said  to  have  beaten  his  head  on  the  wall 
till  he  died.  He  seems  to  have  passed  away  without  the  rites 
of  the  Church,  October  II,  1303. 

This  dreadful  outrage  excited  no  outburst  in  Christendom. 
The  days  of  enthusiastic  reverence  for  the  Papacy  were  ended, 
and  the  disgrace  of  Boniface  VIII  affected  but  little  the  princes 
of  Europe,  who  were  already  fully  occupied  with  their  own 
affairs.  France  was  in  truth  a  new  phenomenon  in  the  world  of 
politics.  Since  the  days  of  Philip  Augustus  she  had  become  a 
first-class  power,  not  as  an  inheretrix  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
but  as  a  nation.  Created  by  the  crusades,  to  which  she  gave  the 
strongest  impulse,  the  severely  logical  spirit  of  her  people  gave 
her  a  coherence  hitherto  unknown.  Her  kings  renounced  the 
fantastic  ideals  of  German  imperialism  and  set  to  work  to  unite 
their  dominions  by  breaking  the  power  of  the  great  feudatories, 
creating  a  middle  class,  subordinating  the  Church  to  their 
authority,  placing  power  in  the  hands  of  lawyers,  and  fostering 
universities.  In  a  word  the  Middle  Ages  were  being  ended  by 
France,  and  a  new  world  was  coming  into  being  with  the 
opening  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

It  now  remains  to  be  told  how  Philip  the  Fair  completed 
what  he  had  begun  by  the  humiliation  of  Boniface  VIII.  The 
popes  found  that  by  ruining  the  German  Empire  they  had  de- 
prived themselves  of  a  power  which,  if  it  had  sometimes 
threatened,  at  least  had  often  protected  them.  They  were  now 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  295 

completely  under  the  control  of  Philip  the  Fair.  The  successor 
of  the  terrible  Boniface  was  Benedict  IX,  who  only  reigned  a 
few  months.  He  was  followed  by  a  Frenchman,  Bertrand  de 
Got,  who  owed  his  election  entirely  to  Philip,  and  became  his 
tool.  His  first  act  was  to  summon  the  cardinals  to  Lyons, 
where  he  was  crowned  as  Clement  V.  The  so-called  Babylonish 
Captivity  had  begun;  and  Rome  languished,  deprived  of  the 
presence  of  a  Pope  for  seventy  years.  The  triumph  of  France 
over  the  Church  was  complete. 

Avignon,  whither  Clement  V  repaired  in  1308  and  was 
destined  long  to  be  the  home  of  the  Papacy,  was  not  in  French 
territory.  It  was  in  Provence  and  belonged  to  Charles  of 
Valois,  the  brother  of  Philip  the  Fair.  In  1348  it  was  pur- 
chased by  the  Pope  for  80,000  florins  from  Queen  Joanna  of 
Naples  and  remained  the  property  of  his  successors  till  the 
French  Revolution.  Its  situation  made  it  a  good  place  from 
whence  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the  Church,  but  its  prox- 
imity to  French  territory  made  the  Curia  the  organ  of  the 
King.  Philip  the  Fair,  under  threat  of  bringing  Boniface  VIII 
to  trial,  and  having  his  pontificate  censured  by  a  Council, 
forced  Clement  V  to  execute  his  will,  and  gave  proof  of  his 
power  and  the  impotence  of  the  Papacy  in  his  hands  by  se- 
curing the  condemnation  of  the  Knights  Templar. 

This  famous  Order,  founded  in  11 18,  had  surpassed  all  the 
military  fraternities  which  originated  in  the  Crusades.  Now 
that  Palestine  was  lost  to  the  Christian  world,  their  occupation 
was  gone;  but  not  their  wealth,  nor  to  all  appearance,  their 
power.  They  certainly  deserved  well  of  the  Papacy  for  their 
steady  support  during  the  dispute  with  Frederic  II.  Had  it 
not  been  for  the  discomfiture  of  Boniface  VIII,  the  Papacy, 
with  the  Preachers  appealing  to  the  educated,  the  Friars 
Minor,  popular  with  the  poor,  and  the  military  support  of  the 
Templars  in  Europe,  might  have  been  irresistible.  As  it  was, 
with  the  feeble  Clement  V  in  power,  Philip  the  Fair  felt  strong 
enough  to  attempt  the  destruction  of  the  whole  organization. 
He  proceeded  with  consummate  cunning.  DuMolay,  the  Grand 
Master  of  the  Temple,  returned  to  France  as  a  great  prince, 


296  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  was  treated  with  cordiality  and  even  deference,  and  given 
no  hint  of  the  King's  intentions.  The  Pope  was  kept  on  tenter 
hooks;  for  whenever  Clement  V  appeared  recalcitrant,  he  was 
threatened  with  the  formal  trial  of  Boniface  VIII,  whose  con- 
demnation on  charges  of  heresy,  fraud,  immorality,  and  count- 
less other  crimes,  would  prove  almost  a  death  blow  to  papal 
authority.  In  the  meantime  Philip's  lawyers  were  preparing  a 
dossier  of  accusations  against  the  Knights,  which  in  truth  were 
not  dissimilar  to  those  levelled  against  the  late  Pope.  The 
Order  was  unpopular  for  its  greed,  haughtiness  and  arrogance, 
and  rumour  told  of  secret  crimes  and  nameless  abominations, 
which  were  confirmed  by  the  devilish  ingenuity  of  the  feudal 
lawyers  of  the  crown,  such  as  de  Plasian  and  Nogaret.  Suddenly 
and  without  warning  the  houses  were  seized,  and  the  Knights 
arrested.  Hearsay  evidence  was  accumulated,  torture  was 
freely  employed  and  the  machinery  of  the  Inquisition  set  in 
motion.  The  Templars  were  said  to  have  been  guilty  of  the 
most  fearful  apostacy.  They  cursed  Christ  and  at  their  initia- 
tion they  were  compelled  to  spit  on  the  Cross.  They  worshipped 
a  hideous  idol  with  the  face  of  a  cat  called  Baphomet.  Their 
ceremonies  of  admission  were  blasphemous  in  the  extreme, 
and  grossly  indecent,  the  foulest  vices  were  encouraged  and 
taught  to  the  neophytes.  Every  kind  of  hostile  evidence  was 
accepted  and  the  Knights,  men  of  noble  birth,  but  unlettered 
soldiers,  confined  in  dungeons,  weighted  down  by  fetters,  and 
subjected  to  torture,  were  induced  in  some  instances  to  admit 
the  charges  brought  against  them.  But  in  fact  very  little 
acknowledgment  of  guilt  could  be  extorted  from  any  of  them; 
and  even  those  who  confessed  often  retracted  when  the  in- 
tolerable tortures  were  removed.  Clement  remonstrated  at 
Philip's  interference  with  the  prerogatives  of  the  Church;  for, 
not  only  were  the  Knights  reckoned  among  the  clergy,  but 
their  alleged  crimes  were  subject  to  ecclesiastical  discipline, 
and  a  layman  was  not  the  person  to  take  cognisance  of  them. 
But  Clement  V  was  doubly  under  Philip's  power,  on  account 
of  Boniface  VIII,  and  also  because  the  Pope  was  playing  a 
crafty  game  in  the  imperial  election,  pretending  to  support 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY  AND  THE  PAPACY  297 

Philip's  brother  Charles  of  Valois,  and  intriguing  against  him 
with  the  German  princes.  A  new  tool  was  discovered  in  the 
Archbishop  of  Sens,  the  Metropolitan  of  the  Bishop  of  Paris. 
He  declared  that  Knights  who  had  confessed  and  retracted 
their  confession  were  relapsed  heretics.  Fifty-three  were  burned 
at  one  time. 

Philip  then  forced  Clement  to  suppress  the  Order  entirely. 
He  ordered  the  arraignment  of  the  memory  of  Boniface  VIII. 
When  the  charges  had  been  made  he  withdrew  from  the  trial, 
and  allowed  proceedings  to  end.  The  grateful  Pope  rewarded 
the  King  by  holding  a  great  council  at  Vienne  in  13 11  at  which 
the  Order  of  the  Temple  was  suppressed.  DuMolay,  the  Grand 
Master,  still  languished  in  prison;  but  in  1313  he  and  another 
were  burned  alive  as  relapsed  heretics. 

In  no  other  country  were  the  Templars  adjudged  guilty  of 
enormous  crimes;  and  upon  the  whole  their  treatment  was  not 
severe.  The  horrors  of  the  suppression  were  confined  to  France. 

This  was  the  real  close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Crusades 
were  dead,  the  Papacy  had  received  a  fatal  blow,  the  Empire 
was  but  a  shadow,  the  hope  of  recovering  Palestine  went  when 
its  best  champions  were  burned  alive  in  Paris.  The  outstanding 
feature  of  this  age  is  France.  It  has  been  shown  how  the  very 
name  in  the  eleventh  century  was  confined  to  a  single  duchy, 
how  its  King  was  the  holder  of  an  almost  empty  title  hardly  a 
primus  inter  pares  among  the  great  nobles.  It  has  been  indi- 
cated how  Suger  aided  Louis  VI  to  make  the  royal  power  a 
reality,  how  Paris  became  a  capital  and  the  heart  of  the  new 
Kingdom.  France  showed  its  intellectual  preeminence  in  the 
reformation  of  monasticism,  in  the  schools  of  Berengar, 
Roscelin,  William  of  Champeaux,  Anselm  of  Laon,  Abelard — 
finally  in  the  University  of  Paris.  To  France  also  belongs  the 
chief  glory  of  the  Crusades,  the  rise  of  the  Normans  to  civiliza- 
tion, and  their  infusion  of  new  life  into  England.  Fortunate  in  a 
succession  of  really  able  kings,  she  fostered  civic  life,  put  down 
the  anarchy  of  feudalism  and  restrained  the  ambition  of  the 
powerful  ecclesiastics.  By  Charles  of  Anjou's  victories  over 
Sicily,  Frenchmen  became  all  powerful  in  Italy,  and  the  Popes 


298  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

who  never  quailed  before  a  German  Kaiser,  became  humble 
clients  of  Philip  the  Fair.  That  King  destroyed  the  old  eccle- 
siastical civilization,  which  in  future  was  but  a  shadow  of  its 
former  self. 

Philip  the  Fair  died  in  13 14  and  Clement  V  in  the  same 
year.  Thus  neither  survived  their  victim  du  Molay  for  more 
than  a  few  months.  Philip  the  Fair  was  a  bad  man,  but  a  great 
king.  Clement  V  was  no  better  as  a  man,  and  was  the  meanest 
of  the  Popes.  His  predecessors  had  many  faults,  but  the  worst 
of  the  popes  since  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century  were  men 
generally  of  stainless  moral  character,  who  endured  hardship 
with  fortitude.  Bertrand  de  Got  seems  to  have  been  of  the 
despicable  type  of  a  licentious  ecclesiastic,  insatiable  in  his 
greed,  and,  unlike  the  great  popes,  he  died  full  of  riches  but 
void  of  honour. 

AUTHORITIES 

The  sketch  of  the  rise  of  France  being  a  general  one,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  do  more  than  indicate  a  few  books  easily  accessible  to  the  student. 

G.  B.  Adams,  Growth  of  the  French  Nation  and  Civilization  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  Kitchin,  History  of  France,  etc.  A.  Luchaire  has  published 
Louis  VI,  Annales  de  sa  Vie.  See  also  J.  W.  Thompson,  The  Development  of 
the  French  Monarchy  under  Louis  VI  le  Gros  (Chicago,  1895).  There  is  a  book 
on  Philip  Augustus,  by  W.  H.  Hutton  (Foreign  Statesmen),  and  in  the 
"Heroes  of  the  Nation  Series,"  St.  Louis  (Louis  IX  of  France),  by  F.  Perry. 
Joinville  has  been  translated  by  F.  Marzials  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Crusades 
(Everyman's  Library);  extracts  may  be  read  in  J.  H.  Robinson,  Readings,  I, 
198-221. 

For  an  account  of  early  Paris  see  Ch.  I  of  J.  McCabe's  Abelard  and  T. 
Okey,  The  Story  of  Paris,  Medieval  Towns.  Philip  IV  the  Fair's  reign  is  not  the 
subject  of  any  English  monograph  I  have  come  across.  See  C.  N.  Langlois  in 
E.  Lavisse's  Histoire  de  France,  Vol.  III.  Milman  in  his  Latin  Christianity 
devotes  328  pages  of  Vol.  VIII  to  the  relations  of  Philip  the  Fair  and  the 
Popes  Boniface  VIII  and  Clement  V.  The  most  accessible  account  of  the 
suppression  of  the  Templars  is  in  Lea's  History  of  the  Inquisition. 


CHAPTER  XII 


ENGLAND 


English  Church  loyal  to  Rome  -  Few  excesses  -  Continental  ambition  of  kings  - 
Early  promise  of  Anglo-Saxon  church  —  Paralysis  followed  Danish  invasion  — 
Early  English  kings  take  an  imperial  title  —  The  Norman  Conquest  —  Enlight- 
ened policy  of  William  I  —  Lanfranc  —  Refusal  of  homage  to  the  Pope  —  The 
conqueror's  ecclesiastical  policy —  William  Rufus  -  Election  of  Anselm - 
Anselm  driven  out  of  England  —  Cause  of  Anselm's  dispute  with  William  — 
Rapid  nationalisation  of  the  English  Church  -  Clergy,  nobles,  and  people  unite 

—  Thomas  Becket  —  Becket  Archbishop  —  Character  of  Henry  —  Ecclesiastical 
immunities  -  Assize  of  Clarendon  -  Merits  of  the  controversy  —  Effect  of 
Becket's  murder  —  Election  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  —  Stephen  Langton 

—  The  interdict  —  John's  surrender  of  his  crown  to  Innocent  III  —  England 
reacts  against  the  Pope  —  Edward  I  -  The  beginnings  of  Parliament  —  Taxation 
of  the  clergy  — The  Convocation  —  The  Bull  Clericis  Lakes  —  Edward  I  resists 
Boniface  VIII  —  Changes  in  England  from  1066  to  1300  —  The  Cathedrals  — 
Durham  —  Norwich  —  Lincoln  —  Gundulf  of  Rochester  —  Intellectual  activity  — 
Men  of  humble  birth  primates  —  Change  in  Papal  relation  —  Edward  I  an  English 
king  —  England  and  Scotland  —  Vacancy  of  the  Scottish  throne  —  Claim  and 
counter  claim  of  England  and  Scotland  from  antiquity  —  Ireland  —  State  of  the 
Church  in  Ireland. 

The  Church  of  the  English,  the  Teutonic  peoples  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  Celtic  inhabitants  of  Britain,  was  due  to 
the  missionary  zeal  of  the  Roman  See.  "Gregory,  our  father," 
says  Bede,  "sent  us  Baptism";  and  the  English  never  forgot 
their  debt;  but  repaid  it  by  enthusiastic  loyalty  to  the  Papacy. 
No  nation  looked  up  to  Rome  more,  or  was  less  troubled  by 
heresy  till  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century.  This  was  not  due 
to  the  backward  state  of  civilization  in  the  country;  for  the 
clergy  at  least  were  quite  abreast  with  their  age  in  intelligence. 
Nor  can  this  freedom  be  attributed  to  the  natural  docility  of  a 
peculiarly  stubborn  people.  It  was  due  partly  to  the  re- 
moteness of  the  island  from  such  foci  of  heretical  teaching  as 
Lombardy  and  Languedoc,  and  partly  to  the  native  good  sense 
of  a  race  which  had  little  sympathy  with  the  exercises  of  the 
Paterines,  or  the  political  vagaries  of  the  Arnoldists.  At  any 
rate,  the  history  of  the  English  Church  had  fewer  wild  out- 

299 


300  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

bursts  of  misguided  zeal,  and  practically  no  atrocities  com- 
pared with  those  which  happened  on  the  Continent.  Nothing 
approaching  an  Inquisition  was  permitted  by  its  government. 

Yet  for  some  time  after  the  Conquest  England  had  scarcely 
a  history  of  its  own.  Its  king  was  ordinarily  a  great  European 
potentate,  owing  his  regal  title  to  the  country,  yet  not  always 
regarding  it  as  his  most  important  possession.  As  long  as  his 
ambitions  were  continental,  he  was  hardly  a  national  sov- 
ereign, but  rather  one  who  looked  upon  his  English  monarchy 
as  a  convenient  starting  point  from  which  he  might  hope  to 
gain  an  imperial  position  in  Europe.  It  was  in  fact  the  shrinkage 
of  the  Continental  dominions  and  ambitions  of  the  King  of 
England  that  made  the  country  into  a  great  power. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Church  had  fluctuated  with  the  fortunes 
of  the  nation.  Beginning  with  extraordinary  promise,  it  had 
from  time  to  time  revived,  only  to  sink  back  under  the  calami- 
ties of  the  various  piratical  invasions  of  the  Danes.  No  church 
gave  birth  to  such  a  series  of  men  eminent  in  more  fields  than 
that  of  the  English  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries.  It  is 
little  short  of  a  miracle  that  long  before  the  century  after  the 
preaching  of  Augustine,  and  hardly  a  generation  following  the 
apostolic  labours  of  Aidan,  men  like  Wilfred  should  have  been 
in  the  heyday  of  their  powers,  and  Caedmon,  Bede  and  Aldhelm 
of  Malmesbury  have  commenced  their  labours.  Within  the 
next  century  native  Englishmen,  like  Boniface  of  Crediton, 
the  Apostle  of  Germany,  and  Alcuin,  the  favourite  scholar, 
adviser  of  Charles  the  Great,  exercised  abiding  influence  on 
the  Continent.  John  Scotus  Eriugena  also,  whatever  his  nation- 
ality, is  believed  to  have  had  an  English  education;  and  if  so, 
the  schools  of  the  country  produced  one  of  the  most  daring 
thinkers  of  the  West. 

But  this  fair  promise  was  ruined  by  the  depredation  of  the 
Danes;  and  the  revival  under  Alfred  the  Great,  and  even  the 
introduction  of  the  Benedictine  rule  by  Dunstan  and  his 
friends,  resulted  in  nothing  comparable  to  the  abundant  har- 
vest of  merit  which  followed  the  planting  of  Christianity  in 
Teutonic  England.  No  literary  remains  of  marked  excellence 


ENGLAND  3  01 

belong  to  the  century  preceding   the   Conquest   nor  did  any 
churchman  of  real  eminence  appear  after  Dunstan. 

Prior  to  the  Danish  troubles  at  the  close  of  the  tenth 
century,  the  kings  of  Wessex  had  become  powerful  and  hon- 
oured monarchs,  and  had  claimed  to  be  Emperors,  rather  than 
Kings.  They  styled  themselves  by  the  Greek  title  of  Basileus, 
thus  implying  that  they  were  not  dependent  on  any  Emperor, 
but  enjoyed  the  rights  of  imperial  sovereignty.  This  fact  was 
remembered  by  the  successors  when  they  found  it  necessary 
to  assert  their  authority  before  the  world. 

The  Norman  Conquest  was  a  subjugation  of  the  English 
Church  as  well  as  of  the  nation,  and  for  generations  it  was  to 
be  ruled  by  men  of  alien  blood.  But  though  in  some  instances 
there  were  undoubted  hardships  inflicted  on  the  native  clergy, 
they  suffered  nothing  approaching  the  tyranny  under  which 
the  conquered  laity  groaned.  For  whilst  the  Norman  baron  re- 
garded the  English  as  a  race  which  he  was  by  his  victory  en- 
titled to  oppress,  the  Bishop  or  Abbot,  though  despising  the 
national  clergy  as  ignorant  boors,  could  not  forget  that  they 
were  priests,  nor  that  the  people  were  committed  to  his  charge. 
A  certain  esprit  de  corps,  due  to  the  consciousness  that,  after 
all,  they  belonged  to  the  same  order,  drew  the  clergy  together, 
and  the  people  had  a  natural  reverence  for  the  office  of  their 
bishops,  which  they  could  not  feel  for  that  of  their  lay  op- 
pressors. In  addition  to  this  the  clergy  had  in  Latin  a  common 
language,  which  the  Norman  and  Saxon  laity  had  not. 

That  the  Church  in  England  gained  on  the  whole  immensely 
by  being  brought  into  more  intimate  connection  with  the 
higher  civilization  of  the  continent  is  indubitable,  and  the 
Conqueror,  though  terribly  severe,  was  an  enlightened  ruler 
in  matters  ecclesiastical.  Not  only  had  he  gone  to  conquer 
England,  under  the  special  blessing  of  Alexander  II,  and  was 
therefore  bound  by  gratitude  to  the  Hildebrandine  party  in 
Rome,  but  he  realised  the  importance  of  an  able  and  devoted 
clergy.  In  addition  to  this  Bishops  were  more  to  be  trusted 
than  lay  nobles  with  strategical  positions  which  might  prove 
centres  of  opposition  to  the  King.  Already  the  policy  had  been 


302  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

inaugurated  of  moving  the  Sees  from  weaker  centres,  like 
Chester  le  Street  to  Durham,  or  from  places  unimportant  from 
their  situation,  like  Crediton  to  others  which  were  likely  to 
command  the  navigation  and  trade  of  a  district  like  Exeter. 
On  these  principles  Dorchester  was  transferred  to  Lincoln,  and 
Thetford  to  Norwich.  It  was  thus  of  the  highest  importance 
to  William  to  appoint  as  his  bishops  good  and  faithful  men  on 
whose  judgment  and  ability  he  could  rely.  In  the  English,  with 
the  sole  exception  of  Wulfstan  of  Worcester,  he  could  not 
trust,  and  the  foreigners  whom  he  caused  to  be  elected  were 
at  least  better  than  their  predecessors. 

For  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  William  selected  the  best 
and  ablest  ecclesiastic  in  his  Norman  dominions  in  Lanfranc, 
Abbot  of  Caen,  a  man  notable  for  his  monastic  virtues,  his 
scholastic  learning,  his  stainless  orthodoxy,  and  his  knowledge 
of  the  law.  It  is  noteworthy  that  William  chose  Lanfranc  to 
be  virtually  the  prime  minister  of  his  new  dominion,  not  a 
Norman,  but  an  Italian.  As  King  of  England,  he  needed  a 
lawyer  because  of  his  feudal  relations.  As  Duke  of  Normandy 
he  had  to  recognise  the  King  of  France  as  his  overlord,  and  he 
might  well  be  asked  to  consider  himself  in  a  similar  state  of 
dependence  as  to  England.  This  explains  the  care  William  took 
to  assume  the  throne  of  Edward  the  Confessor  not  by  right  of 
conquest,  but  as  heir  to  Edward,  by  free  election  of  the  people, 
and  also  the  scrupulous  show  of  legality  with  which  he  in- 
vested all  his  proceedings.  It  accounts  for  his  attitude  to  the 
Papacy.  He  had  obtained  the  consent  of  Alexander  II  to  make 
an  attack  on  England  for  the  purpose  of  punishing  the  perjury 
of  Harold  and  of  restoring  the  country  to  Catholic  unity,  of 
which  the  irregularities  of  Stigand,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
had  deprived  it.  But  though  the  King  showed  himself  en- 
tirely submissive  to  the  Pope  as  regards  the  payment  of  Peter's 
pence,  he  was  inexorable  in  refusing  the  homage  for  England 
which  his  fellow  countrymen  had  paid  for  their  conquests  in 
Southern  Italy  and  Sicily.  On  the  ground  that  the  kings  who  had 
preceded  him  had  never  done  homage,  William  through  Lanfranc 
plainly  refused  to  accede  to  the  demand  of  Gregory  VII. 


ENGLAND  303 

William's  ecclesiastical  policy  was  that  of  an  arbitrary  man 
who  at  the  same  time  was  resolved  to  rule  justly  and  to  keep 
within  the  limits  of  the  law.  He  dealt  in  no  petty  peculation  of 
church  property  by  keeping  bishoprics  and  abbacies  vacant  in 
order  to  seize  their  revenues;  but  he  made  it  plain  that  he 
would  brook  no  questioning  of  his  authority.  Every  bishop 
had  to  do  homage  for  his  estates  and  to  discharge  all  his 
feudal  obligations.  As  King,  he  practically  appointed  to  all 
the  higher  posts  in  the  church  by  his  ability  to  refuse  to 
"invest"  any  person  of  whom  he  disapproved.  He  seems  to 
have  deferred  much  to  Lanfranc,  for  whose  opinion  he  had  a 
great  respect,  but  to  have  exercised  full  authority  in  ecclesi- 
astical matters. 

Under  Norman  influence  the  Church  in  England  was 
brought  into  closer  relations  with  Europe  and  lost  some  of  its 
distinctive  features.  It  was  no  longer  allowed  to  continue  its 
undefined  relation  to  the  State.  The  Bishop  for  example  no 
longer  sat  in  judgment  with  the  Earl,  nor  held  his  see  without 
conditions.  He  had  a  court  of  his  own  separate  from  the  lay 
tribunals;  for  the  Church  was  recognised  as  an  imperium  in 
imperio,  a  self-governing  institution.  At  the  same  time  no 
ecclesiastic  was  allowed  to  forget  his  feudal  obligations.  Like 
every  other  landowner,  the  Bishop  or  Abbot  had  to  become  the 
"  King's  man  "  and  do  homage  for  his  territories.  He  was  equally 
bound  to  equip  troops  for  the  King's  service.  Before  the 
eleventh  century  closed,  it  was  apparent  that  the  Church  had 
gained  by  being  no  longer  isolated.  Great  cathedrals  began  to 
arise,  abbeys  were  being  endowed.  A  famous  man  in  Lanfranc 
sat  on  the  throne  of  Canterbury,  to  be  succeeded  by  one  even 
more  celebrated  in  the  person  of  St.  Anselm;  and,  though  they 
were  Italians,  their  presence  in  England  was  in  itself  sufficient 
to  act  as  an  inspiration  to  the  clergy  as  well  as  to  increase  the 
reputation  of  the  Church. 

There  was,  however,  another  side  to  the  picture,  which 
became  manifest  when  the  strong  hand  of  the  Conqueror  was 
removed.  His  successor,  William  Rufus,  possessed  much  of  his 
ability,  but  little  of  his  strength  of  character  or  sense  of  rec- 


304  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

titude.  If  William  I  had  ruled  the  Church,  it  was  in  the  in- 
terest of  his  authority,  rather  than  of  his  cupidity.  William  II 
saw  profit  in  keeping  the  church  under  his  control  and  ex- 
hausted every  legal  device  to  extract  money  from  its  estates. 
The  way  he  kept  the  bishoprics  vacant,  till  he  could  find  some 
one  to  make  it  worth  his  while  to  appoint,  was  a  scandal  to 
Christendom.  This  is  the  key  to  the  whole  story  of  Anselm's 
election  to  the  See  of  Canterbury  and  of  his  appeal  to  Rome 
against  the  King  of  England. 

On  the  death  of  Lanfranc  at  a  great  age  in  1089,  William 
Rufus,  who  had  respected  and  followed  the  advice  of  the 
Archbishop,  kept  the  See  vacant  for  several  years  and  used  the 
revenues  for  his  own  purposes.  This  was  due  to  a  definite 
policy  inaugurated  by  the  king's  adviser,  Ralph  Flambard, 
who  strained  feudal  law  to  the  utmost  limit  in  order  to  find 
funds  for  his  master.  During  the  vacancy  of  a  "benefice"  the 
King  administered  its  revenues  in  his  own  interests  and  thus 
Flambard  is  described  as  desiring  to  make  the  king  "every- 
man's  heir."  Till  1095  Canterbury  had  been  without  an 
Archbishop,  but  in  that  year  William  fell  ill  and  there  seemed 
little  hope  of  his  recovery.  The  prospect  of  death  induced  him 
to  consent  to  the  appointment  of  a  primate;  and  as  it  was  prob- 
able that  he  would  soon  be  where  he  could  neither  profit  by 
the  revenues  of  the  vacant  see,  nor  be  inconvenienced  by  the 
chair  being  filled  by  a  man  of  high  principle,  the  King  ac- 
cepted Anselm,  who  was  then  in  England  as  the  guest  of  Hugh 
Lupus,  Earl  of  Chester.  The  unexpected  recovery  of  William 
led  to  a  serious  dispute  between  the  monarch  and  the  See  of 
Canterbury.  In  the  early  days  of  his  reign  William,  who  was 
devoted  to  the  memory  of  his  father,  had  revered  Lanfranc  as 
his  friend  and  adviser;  and  Lanfranc,  a  shrewd  man  of  the 
world,  had  understood  that  the  new  king  could  be  managed, 
but  not  driven.  Anselm,  on  the  other  hand,  was  before  all 
things  a  student  and  a  monk  with  a  singularly  sensitive  con- 
science. With  his  refined  nature  he  was  incapable  of  under- 
standing how  to  deal  with  a  master,  coarse-fibred,  and  immoral, 
but  not  entirely  destitute  of  good  impulses.  The  result  was  that 


ENGLAND  3°5 

after  a  stormy  interview  at  Rockingham  Castle,  Anselm  was 
driven  from  England  and  took  refuge  with  Pope  Urban  II. 

Anselm  has  often  been  unjustly  criticised  for  his  behaviour 
towards  William  II  and  Henry  I.  It  is  true  that  he  spent  most 
of  his  primacy  (1095-1109)  out  of  England,  that  he  appealed 
against  the  laws  of  the  country  to  the  Pope,  and  that  his  gen- 
eral   attitude    throughout    was    what    would    now    be    called 
ultramontane.  But  to  judge  men  by  the  light  of  events  which 
happened  centuries  later  is  not  the  part  of  an  historian,  whose 
duty  it  is  as  far  as  possible  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of  the 
person  he  is  describing  and  to  realise  the  circumstances  of  his 
age.  Anselm,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  not  only  a  foreigner 
to  the  conquered  English,  but  also  to  the  conquering  Normans. 
He  was  an  Italian,  who  had  found  a  home  in  Normandy;  he 
was  honoured  by  those  who  had  made  their  home  in  England, 
and  by  their  influence  was  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
As  a  stranger  called  to  rule  over  an  alien  Christian  community, 
as  a  philosopher  and  a  Christian  ascetic,  compelled  against  his 
will  to  undertake  responsibilities  distasteful  to  him,  Anselm 
looked  upon  the  province  assigned  to  him  as  part  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church  of  Christ  of  which  the  Pope  was  the  universally 
acknowledged  head.  This  attitude  made  him  sympathetic  with 
Norman  and  Saxon  alike  as  Christian  men,  but  to  demand  that 
he  should  show  himself  patriotic,  or  even  Anglican,  is  to  re- 
quire that  he  should  have  lived  some  centuries  later.  His  only 
conception  of  duty  in  his  day  must  have  been  to  guard  the 
Church  from  the  oppression  of  William  II  and  what  he  re- 
garded as  the  illegalities  of  Henry  I,  and  to  take  his  orders 
from  the  Roman  See. 

Anselm's  dispute  with  William  Rufus  turned  on  the  King's 
claim  in  the  event  of  a  disputed  election  to  the  Papacy  to  recog- 
nise whichever  pope  it  suited  him  to  acknowledge,  and  to 
allow  no  ecclesiastic  to  submit  to  either  candidate  till  he 
should  have  made  up  his  mind.  By  his  hesitation  he  was  able 
to  keep  Anselm  for  a  time  from  obtaining  the  pallium,  which 

1    •  1"** 

was  necessary  before  he  could  exercise  his  metropolitan  juris- 
diction. When  this  matter  had  been  adjusted,  the  King  re- 


306  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

fused  the  Archbishop  permission  to  hold  a  council  to  reform 
the  disorders  of  the  time.  It  was  therefore  as  an  oppressed 
bishop,  hindered  in  the  discharge  of  his  plain  duties,  that 
Anselm  appealed  to  Urban  II.  With  Henry  I  the  insistence 
of  the  King  to  demand  the  ceremonies  of  investiture,  when 
these  had  been  condemned  by  the  Church,  was  a  natural  cause 
of  trouble  to  Anselm,  who  as  Archbishop  felt  compelled  to 
refuse  assent  to  a  custom  which  had  now  become  ecclesias- 
tically illegal.  In  this  affair  Henry  I  showed  himself  the  better 
negotiator;  and  peace  was  made  between  England  and  the 
Papacy  before  the  question  of  investitures  had  been  settled 
with  the  Empire  at  great  cost  of  blood  and  treasure. 

Before,  however,  going  into  the  question  of  the  relations 
of  England  with  the  Roman  See  it  is  interesting  to  see  how 
rapidly  the  Church  in  one  respect  became  nationalised.  It  was 
the  policy  of  the  Conqueror  to  fill  the  highest  offices  of  the 
Church  with  clergy  imported  from  the  Continent.  The  first 
four  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  were  foreigners,  and  the  first 
native  of  England  was  Thomas  Becket,  who  was  born  in  London, 
and  made  Primate  in  1162.  His  successor  was  a  Norman;  and 
after  him  Canterbury  was  only  once  held  by  a  foreigner  in 
Boniface  of  Savoy,  the  most  hated  man  in  England.  Of  the 
seven  archbishops  appointed  in  the  thirteenth  century  five  of 
the  seven  were  of  obscure  origin,  and  consequently  it  may  be  in- 
ferred were  of  Saxon  blood.  So  completely  does  the  racial 
distinction  between  the  conquering  Normans  and  the  van- 
quished English  appear  to  have  been  obliterated,  at  any  rate 
in  the  Church. 

This  had  important  results.  As  has  been  already  indicated, 
the  kings  of  England  from  the  Conqueror  to  Henry  III  were 
generally  European  potentates,  fully  as  much  interested  in 
their  continental  dominions  as  in  their  island  kingdom.  This 
prevented  the  monarch  from  being  regarded  by  his  Norman 
baronage  as  their  natural  leader,  under  whom  the  subject 
Saxons  were  to  be  held  in  thraldom;  since,  as  the  Plantagenets 
were  not  even  Norman,  the  English  nobility  realised  that  it 
was  their  interest  to  maintain  their  independence  by  having 


ENGLAND  307 

the  people  on  their  side,  which  made  the  fusion  of  races  more 
complete.  At  the  same  time  the  Church  acted  as  a  powerful 
agency  in  uniting  the  two  peoples  into  one  nation,  the  clergy 
being  drawn  from  both;  and  the  native  element,  as  is  indi- 
cated in  the  origin  of  so  many  of  the  Primates,  becoming 
more  than  ever  in  the  ascendant.  There  was  nothing  anti- 
Roman  in  all  this,  but  it  shows  that  a  national  sentiment 
was  tending  to  form  one  people,  singularly  jealous  of  their 
legal  rights. 

The  famous  quarrel  of  Henry  II  and  Thomas  Becket  is 
significant  of  the  rise  of  this  national  spirit,  and  the  enormous 
popularity  of  the  saint  was  due  not  merely  to  the  miracles 
which  followed  his  tragic  death,  but  to  the  fact  that  he  resisted 
the  arbitrary  will  of  a  non-English  monarch. 

Becket's  career  is  a  good  example  of  what  the  life  of  a 
churchman  of  his  age  might  be.  Trained  as  a  lawyer,  he  re- 
ceived the  tonsure;  but  did  not  proceed  to  priest's  orders.  As 
Archdeacon  of  Canterbury  he  conducted  the  business  of 
Archbishop  Theobald  and  received  a  number  of  minor  clerical 
emoluments  which  made  him  a  rich  man.  His  enemies  charged 
him  with  utter  worldliness  in  his  youth,  but  his  moral  char- 
acter was,  as  is  apparent  from  their  silence,  beyond  reproach. 
The  Archbishop  recommended  him  to  Henry  II;  and  as  chan- 
cellor, not  then  a  judicial  office,  he  was  practically  the  chief 
minister  of  the  King.  He  distinguished  himself  as  a  soldier  in 
France,  and  was  regarded  as  virtually  a  layman  enriched  by 
the  benefices  of  the  Church. 

As  a  minister  of  the  crown  Becket  had  steadily  supported 
the  royal  authority  which  had  been  directed  to  the  restoration 
of  order  in  England  after  the  horrible  anarchy  of  the  reign  of 
Stephen.  He  was  by  many  regarded  as  the  enemy  of  the  Church. 
His  nomination  and  election  to  the  Primacy  was  generally 
considered  as  a  scandalous  exercise  of  the  King's  influence 
in  favour  of  a  man,  who  though  richly  endowed  by  Church 
preferments  could,  only  by  courtesy,  be  considered  as  a 
clergyman  at  all.  Becket,  however,  took  his  position  with  the 
utmost  seriousness,  and  from  the  day  of  his  consecration  was 


308  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

determined  to  prove  the  champion  of  the  church  over  which 
he  had  been  called  to  preside. 

The  quarrel  of  Becket  and  Henry  II  involved  many  inter- 
ests, and  the  merits  of  the  case  can  be  judged  as  far  as  possible 
by  an  impartial  consideration  of  the  circumstances  of  the  age. 
Henry  II  was  a  singularly  able  and  sagacious  prince,  who  held 
and  increased  his  vast  dominions  with  consummate  political 
skill  rather  than  by  military  ability.  He  was  subject  to  gusts 
of  passion,  expressed  in  furious  gestures,  and  at  times  depriv- 
ing him  of  the  power  of  self-control.  When  these  were  over  he 
resumed  his  task  with  his  wonted  prudence — a  prudence  which 
frequently  took  the  form  of  profound  dissimulation.  In  Becket 
he  met  his  match  in  courage  and  tenacity  of  purpose  which 
in  the  Archbishop  was  combined  with  a  strong  sense  of  duty. 

In  a  sense  Henry  II  was  a  reformer.  His  ideal  was,  doubt- 
less, to  have  in  his  kingdom  of  England  a  government  under  his 
control,  a  unified  government  doing  equal  justice  to  all.  The 
great  obstacle  to  this  was  the  Church,  then  a  body  including  a 
much  larger  proportion  of  the  population  than  at  present,  each 
member  of  which  was  a  privileged  person,  amenable  only  to 
its  jurisdiction.  As  all  reforms  are  apt  to  strain  the  laws  and 
customs  of  a  country,  Becket  was  inflexible  in  maintaining 
the  legal  rights  of  the  clergy,  not  merely  of  the  prelates  of  the 
realm,  but  of  the  humblest  doorkeeper  of  a  church,  all  of  whom 
were  subject  to  the  Courts  Christian.  According  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  ecclesiastical  law  the  penalty  of  death  could  not  be 
inflicted  by  the  Church,  and  consequently  the  worst  offender 
could  only  be  subjected  to  a  mild  sentence,  however  atrocious 
his  crime. 

The  grievance  between  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  juris- 
diction came  to  a  head  in  the  affair  of  Philip  de  Brois,  a  canon 
of  Bedford,  who  had  been  condemned  by  his  bishop  to  pay  the 
family  of  the  man  he  had  murdered  a  compensation  for  the 
crime.  Later  the  King's  Justiciary  openly  charged  him  with 
being  a  murderer,  and  was  insulted  in  open  court.  The  King 
ordered  de  Brois  to  be  indicted  in  the  spiritual  court  for  his 
contempt,  and  the  judge  sentenced  him  to  be  whipped,  and 


ENGLAND  309 

his  benefice  sequestrated.  This  mild  sentence  gave  great 
offence  to  the  King,  who  demanded  of  the  clergy  that  every 
delinquent  clerk  should  first  be  degraded  and  then  handed 
over  to  the  royal  judges  for  punishment.  The  reply  of  the 
bishops  was  that  this  would  place  the  clergy  of  England  in  a 
far  worse  position  than  they  were  in  every  other  country. 
The  next  question  to  the  clergy  was  whether  they  would  ob- 
serve "the  custom  of  the  realm."  To  this  Becket  as  their  head 
said  yes,  "saving  his  order."  This  provoked  the  King's  wrath, 
and  was  the  prelude  to  the  struggle  which  ensued. 

The  King  declared  what  these  "customs"  were  in  the 
Constitutions  promulgated  at  Clarendon,  whither  the  great 
Council  of  the  nation  assembled  after  Christmas  11 63.  In  many 
of  these  there  were  innovations  intended  to  extend  the  royal 
authority  as  well  as  to  remedy  abuses.  They  were  sixteen  in 
number;  the  most  important  show  the  relations  between  the 
Church  and  Crown  of  England.  Among  them  are  the  fol- 
lowing: 

Disputes  between  the  clergy  and  the  laity  about  pres- 
entations are  to  be  brought  before  the  King's  courts. 

A  clerk  accused  of  a  crime  is  to  be  summoned  to  the  King's 
court  to  answer  there  for  whatever  is  determined,  and  to  the 
Church  court  for  whatever  is  determined  he  should  answer 
there.  The  King's  justice  is  to  be  represented  in  the  Church 
court  when  the  case  is  tried.  If  the  clerk  shall  confess  or  be 
convicted,  the  Church  shall  not  protect  him. 

Archbishops,  bishops  and  other  exalted  persons  may  not 
leave  the  realm  without  the  King's  leave. 

The  laity  are  only  to  be  accused  in  the  presence  of  the 
bishop  by  certain  and  legal  accusers.  If  they  are  so  powerful 
that  no  one  is  willing  to  appear,  the  sheriff,  on  demand  from 
the  bishop,  is  to  summon  twelve  loyal  men  from  the  district. 

No  servant  in  chief  or  servant  of  the  King's  household  may 
be  excommunicated,  or  his  land  laid  under  an  interdict,  till  the 
King,  or  in  his  absence,  his  Justiciary,  has  been  consulted. 

No  appeal  may  go  further  than  the  Archbishop's  court 
without  the  King's  consent. 


310  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Vacant  benefices,  like  bishoprics  and  abbeys,  are  to  be  held 
by  the  King.  When  the  time  comes  for  election  the  King  shall 
recommend  the  best  person  and  the  election  shall  be  made  in 
the  King's  Chapel  with  his  consent  and  the  advice  of  the 
persons  he  shall  summon.  The  elected  person  shall  do  homage 
and  fealty. 

It  would  require  much  time  to  relate  how  Becket  first 
accepted  the  Constitutions,  and  then  refused  to  affix  his  seal 
to  them,  how  he  bitterly  repented  his  weakness,  how  he  defied 
the  King  at  Northampton  and  fled  to  France.  There  Louis  VII 
received  him  with  honour,  and  Pope  Alexander  III  played  a 
double  game  in  attempting  the  difficult  task  of  supporting 
Becket  and  not  offending  Henry  II.  Nor  is  it  here  necessary 
to  enter  into  the  complicated  story  of  Becket's  negotiations 
with  Henry,  his  return  to  England,  the  monarch's  rash  words, 
and  the  archbishop's  tragic  death  at  the  altar  of  his  cathedral 
church.  It  is  well  known  that  miracles  proved  that  death  to 
have  been  a  martyrdom;  indeed  the  cultus  of  St.  Thomas 
became  most  popular  north  of  the  Alps.  After  his  death  Henry 
II  performed  a  humiliating  penance  at  the  grave  of  the  martyr, 
and  that  the  King  was  pardoned  was  attested  by  the  news, 
brought  during  his  recovery  from  his  severe  "discipline," 
that  the  King  of  Scotland  was  defeated  and  a  prisoner.  But 
the  most  important  matter  is  the  significance  of  the  whole 
incident. 

Party  feeling  has  so  entered  into  this  ancient  controversy 
between  Henry  and  Becket  that  it  is  generally  thought  that 
the  King  was  a  champion  of  law  and  order  against  clerical 
arrogance.  It  is  often  forgotten  that  the  majority  of  the 
bishops  were  opposed  to  Becket  and  that  one  of  the  reasons 
for  his  murder  was  that  he  had  issued  bulls  excommunicating 
his  suffragans  for  crowning  Henry  IPs  son  King  of  England, 
when  he,  the  Primate,  was  absent.  The  rulers  of  the  Church, 
who  were  assuredly  not  backward  in  asserting  their  privileges, 
did  not  regard  Becket  as  their  champion;  and  his  bitterest 
enemy,  John  of  Oxford,  was  after  the  martyrdom  rewarded 
with  a  bishopric.  Becket  stood  for  what  he  believed  to  be  the 


ENGLAND  3  1 1 

law  of  the  Church  and  was  ready  to  die  in  its  defence.  Now 
whatever  we  may  think  of  clerical  legislators,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  criminal  law  of  the  Church  was  in  theory 
greatly  in  advance  of  that  of  the  customs,  often  unwritten,  of 
which  the  King's  law  mainly  consisted.  Its  object  was,  that 
which  is  now  commonly  declared  to  be  the  end  of  all  punitive 
legislation,  not  to  exact  vengeance  for  the  crime  but  to  improve 
the  criminal.   If  it  seems  monstrous  in  these  days  that  the 
clergy  should  be  under  one  law  and  the  laity  under  another,  the 
anomaly  of  class  legislation  was  not  perceived  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  Moreover,  the  Church  represented   an   unarmed  popu- 
lation, and  might  at  any  time  be  despoiled  by  a  licentious 
baronage  unless  the  persons  of  the  clergy  and  their  possessions 
were  not  specially  safeguarded  by  laws  which  gave  them  pro- 
tection by  excommunication  and  interdict.  Further  the  clergy 
were  the  sworn  protectors  of  the  poor,  the  miserable,  and  the 
oppressed,   and  their  immunities  sheltered  those  under  their 
protection.  Such  things  as  benefit  of  clergy,  sanctuary  and  the 
like  became  in  later  days  pernicious  anomalies  or  intolerable 
nuisances,  but  they  were  not  so  intended:  in  a  barbarous  age 
they  imposed  a  certain  restraint  to  the  benefit  of  the  wretched. 
Becket  was  fighting  no  selfish  quarrel  when  he  espoused  the 
cause  of  the  clergy,  although  he  was  in  the  wrong  in  not  recog- 
nising the  necessity  of  proceeding  against  the  clerical  criminal 
class  which  had  wrought  such  disorder  in  the  previous  reign. 
Possibly,  however,  so  able  and  vigorous  a  man  would  as  Pri- 
mate have  made  his  hand  felt  in  dealing  with  their  crimes. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  the  story  of  Becket's  death 
thrilled  the  whole  Christian  world,  that  it  was  told  and  retold 
in  every  form,  including  that  of  the  Icelandic  Saga,  that 
miracles  almost  daily  asserted  his  sanctity,  and  that  the  shrine 
made  Canterbury  a  most  famous  place  of  pilgrimage,  it  is 
wonderful  how  little  real  effect  resulted  from  it.  Those  who 
read  English  history,  and  neglect  the  story  of  the  Papacy,  find 
it  difficult  to  understand  the  attitude  of  Pope  Alexander  III. 
They  are  ignorant  of  the  dangerous  position  of  the  pontiff,  and 
the  necessity  of  retaining  an  ally  so  powerful  as  Henry  II  in 


312  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

his  struggle  with  Frederic  Barbarossa.  The  Pope's  zeal  for 
Becket's  cause  varied  with  his  prospects  but  he  could  not 
afford  to  risk  the  very  existence  of  the  Papacy  for  a  domestic 
quarrel  in  so  distant  a  country  as  England,  especially  when 
the  Church  itself  was  profoundly  divided  on  the  question  at 
issue.  On  the  whole  in  the  disputes  between  the  English 
clergy  and  their  kings  the  popes  tried  to  prove  themselves 
judicious  and  conciliatory.  In  the  next  century  their  attitude 
was  more  interested. 

Though  Becket  was  solemnly  canonized  as  a  martyr  by 
Alexander  III,  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  were  not  con- 
demned by  the  Pope  nor  repealed  by  the  King.  The  power  and 
influence  of  the  Church  was  not  increased,  and  the  penance  of 
Henry  was  accepted  as  an  adequate  atonement  for  the  crime, 
which,  if  he  did  not  commit,  he  was  partly  responsible. 

The  next  dispute  on  ecclesiastical  matters  in  England  was 
due  to  the  difficulties  incident  on  the  election  of  an  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  For  two  centuries  after  the  Conquest 
there  is  hardly  a  single  instance  of  the  choice  of  a  Primate 
being  made  without  dispute.  It  is  very  difficult  to  say  exactly 
by  whom  a  bishop  was  chosen  in  primitive  times.  On  the 
whole  perhaps  Clement  of  Rome's  phrase,  "With  the  consent 
of  the  whole  church,"  expresses  the  fact  that  originally  the 
officials  of  a  church  were  elected  by  the  faithful.  Canterbury, 
however,  was  not  merely  a  cathedral  church,  for  Augustine 
was  not  only  the  archbishop,  but  the  abbot  of  the  community 
of  monks  which  he  had  brought  with  him.  These  claimed  the 
privilege  of  electing  their  own  abbot  and  therefore  of  choosing 
the  primate  of  the  greater  part  of  Britain.  But  almost  invari- 
ably the  King  had  a  voice  in  the  matter  and  the  Conqueror, 
as  has  been  indicated,  insisted  on  his  right  to  veto  any  election. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  after  Anselm  almost  every  election 
was  a  subject  of  controversy,  and  often  the  vacancies  were  pro- 
tracted for  years.  The  monks  of  Christ  Church  were  obliged 
to  hold  the  election  in  the  King's  court,  and  had  therefore  to 
delegate  certain  of  their  number  to  represent  them.  The  King 
naturally  claimed  a  voice  in  the  matter;  so  did  the  bishops  of 


ENGLAND  313 

the  Province,  as  they  were  at  least  as  interested  in  who  should 
preside  over  them  as  the  monks.  On  the  whole  the  choice  of 
the  Abbey  was  seldom  a  happy  one.  Societies  of  this  kind 
seldom  want  the  best  man,  but  prefer  someone  whom  they  hope 
they  can  manage,  and  perhaps  like  to  create  a  vacancy  in  their 
body  which  will  entail  a  general  move  up  of  subordinate  offi- 
cials. As  a  rule  the  King  desired  to  appoint  a  man  of  con- 
spicuous merit,  and  wisely  restrained  the  freedom  of  the 
monks.  The  permission  to  elect  was  often  limited,  the  King 
suggesting  on  whom  the  choice  of  the  monks  should  fall.  When 
there  was  a  deadlock  the  Pope  was  generally  consulted;  and 
seems  to  have  tried  honestly  to  select  the  best  man  for  the 
post.  In  no  single  instance  was  a  complete  stranger  to  the 
country  ever  appointed,  with  the  exception  of  Boniface  of 
Savoy.  Lanfranc  and  Anselm  were  well  known  to  the  Normans, 
and  those  not  born  in  England  had  lived  there  for  some  time, 
and  taken  part  in  its  church  affairs.  One  attempt  had  been 
made  to  secure  a  really  representative  electoral  body,  when 
Baldwin  in  the  reign  of  Richard  I  tried  to  found  a  collegiate 
church  at  Hackington;  but  the  monks  of  Christ  Church  car- 
ried an  appeal  to  Rome  and  foiled  the  Archbishop.  On  the 
whole,  like  other  anomalies  in  England,  the  system  was  ob- 
jectionable, but  did  not  work  badly,  and  secured  the  country 
a  series  of  capable,  respectable  and  on  the  whole,  usefully 
average  Primates. 

On  the  death  of  Hubert  Walter  in  1205  there  was  the 
usual  trouble  as  to  the  election  of  a  successor.  The  monks 
elected  the  sub-prior  Reginald  and  sent  him  to  be  consecrated. 
This  had  been  done  by  some  of  the  younger  monks,  who  de- 
sired to  steal  a  march  on  the  King  by  a  private  election.  They 
hoped  that  Reginald  would  return  consecrated  by  the  Pope, 
and  invested  with  the  pall  to  preside  over  the  province  of 
Canterbury.  Innocent  III,  suspecting  that  all  was  not  regular, 
told  Reginald  to  remain  in  Rome,  and  soon  another  delegation 
arrived  to  announce  that  King  John  had  set  aside  Reginald, 
and  ordered  the  monks  to  elect  the  Bishop  of  Norwich.  Inno- 
cent III  quashed  both  elections,  and  commanded  the  monks 


314  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

to  choose  an  Englishman  at  Rome,  Stephen  Langton,  Cardinal 
of  St.  Chrysogonus.  John's  refusal  to  accept  Langton  as  arch- 
bishop was  the  cause  of  the  interdict. 

Many  acts  of  this  illustrious  pontiff,  even  when  judged  by 
the  standards  of  the  thirteenth  century,  are  indefensible,  but 
the  laying  of  England  under  an  interdict  does  not  appear  to  be 
one  of  them.  Arbitrary  as  he  often  showed  himself  to  be,  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  Innocent  III  was  actuated  by  un- 
worthy motives,  or  that  he  did  not  labour  sincerely  to  restore 
order  in  the  Church.  Since  the  death  of  the  Conqueror  the 
conduct  of  his  successors  in  keeping  sees  vacant  in  order  to 
enjoy  their  revenues  had  been  an  open  scandal,  and,  by  making 
the  whole  country  feel  the  effects  of  the  misdoings  of  the 
monarch,  the  Pope  may  have  thought  that  he  was  employing 
the  most  efficacious  means  of  bringing  an  intolerable  state  of 
affairs  to  an  end. 

The  interdict  lasted  for  four  years  and  was  only  partially 
observed.  John  seized  the  goods  of  the  clergy  who  obeyed,  and 
arrested  the  women  who  lived  with  some  as  their  wives.  His 
government  during  this  period  was  marked  by  a  vigorous 
policy  towards  both  Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  by  some  suc- 
cesses abroad.  For  the  fact  is  often  ignored  that,  though  this 
king  lost  Normandy,  and  acquired  a  character  worse  than  that 
of  any  other  English  monarch,  he  was  a  man  of  great  ability, 
as  is  shown  in  the  dexterity  with  which  he  foiled  the  schemes 
of  Philip  Augustus.  Innocent  III  had  excommunicated  John, 
absolved  his  vassals  from  their  allegiance,  and  offered  Philip 
Augustus  the  same  privilege  as  Alexander  II  had  bestowed 
on  Duke  William  of  Normandy,  the  right  to  conquer  England, 
if  he  could.  John  suddenly  submitted  to  the  Pope's  ambassador, 
a  Roman  sub-deacon  named  Pandulf,  surrendered  his  crown 
and  became  the  liegeman  of  Innocent  III.  He  took  the  Cross 
and  promised  if  opportunity  should  offer  to  go  on  a  crusade 
himself.  He  thus  became,  albeit  the  subject,  the  client  of  the 
most  powerful  influence  in  the  world,  and  the  interdicts  and 
excommunications,  with  which  he  had  been  smitten,  were  now 
ready  to  fall  on  the  heads  of  his  enemies. 


ENGLAND  315 

Dr.  Lingard,  the  Roman  Catholic  historian  of  England, 
whilst  admitting  the  baseness  of  this  transaction,  points  out 
that  it  cannot  in  the  light  of  the  ideas  of  the  age  be  regarded 
as  severely  as  it  would  have  been  in  later  days.  Other  princes 
had  become  feudatories  of  the  Pope,  and  John  himself  owed 
allegiance  to  Philip  Augustus  for  his  French  dominions.  The 
same  historian  suggests  that  John  may  have  been  forced  to 
take  this  step  by  his  barons  who  preferred  to  have  an  impartial 
tribunal  to  appeal  to,  in  the  event  of  their  being  oppressed  by 
their  King. 

Anyhow  the  league  against  John  immediately  dissolved, 
and  he  in  turn  became  the  aggressor  against  Philip  Augustus. 
The  defeat,  however,  of  the  allied  army  at  Bouvines,  1213,  put 
an  end  to  the  hopes  of  John  in  Europe. 

From  this  time  there  set  in  a  steady  and  persistent  reaction 
in  England  against  the  Papal  policy  in  Europe  and  ultimately 
against  the  Papacy  itself.  Innocent  III  made  a  fatal  mistake 
of  taking  the  side  of  John  in  opposition  to  the  barons  and 
even  to  his  own  nominee,  the  Primate  Stephen  Langton.  The 
condemnation  of  Magna  Charta,  which  had  been  wrung  with 
such  difficulty  from  John,  created  a  feeling  in  England  that  the 
Pope  was  opposed  to  the  liberties  of  the  country  and  this  was 
intensified,  when  the  anti-national  policy  of  Henry  III  was  up- 
held by  several  pontiffs.  This  discontent  finds  expression  in 
the  writing  of  Matthew  Paris,  the  monk  of  St.  Albans.  Not  that 
England  was  in  any  way  heretical,  or  disposed  to  question  the 
supremacy  of  the  Pope  or  the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  There 
was  nothing  of  the  reformer  in  such  a  man  as  Robert  Gros- 
seteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  the  patron  of  the  growing  schools 
of  Oxford  and  of  the  Friars.  The  grievances  were  that  the  Popes 
Italian,  and  their  anti-German  policy,  with  which  England  had 
no  concern,  proved  constant  drain  on  the  revenues  of  the  Church, 
that  money  was  taken  out  of  the  realm  to  further  useless  and 
impossible  schemes  for  the  aggrandisement  of  the  royal  family, 
such  as  Richard  of  Cornwall's  election  to  the  Empire,  and 
Henry's  acceptance  of  the  crown  of  Sicily  from  the  Pope  for 
his  son  Edmund.  The  taxes  imposed  by  the  Popes  on  England 


316  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

were  aggravated  by  the  attempts  to  make  its  benefices  a  means 
of  paying  salaries  to  non-resident  Italians;  and  this  and  much 
else  tended  to  foster  a  national  spirit,  at  first  directed  against 
foreigners,  and,  finally,  against  the  Roman  See. 

The  policy  of  Edward  I  of  England  was  in  some  respects 
analogous  to  that  of  his  rival  Philip  the  Fair,  inasmuch  as  he 
made  his  first  object  the  consolidation  of  his  own  kingdom. 
His  idea  was  to  make  himself  absolute  master  of  the  whole 
of  Britain,  for  which  purpose  he  undertook  the  subjugation  of 
Wales,  and  the  reduction  of  Scotland  to  an  acknowledged  po- 
sition of  dependence.  He  also  endeavoured  to  strengthen  his 
position  by  the  aid  of  his  lawyers,  and  to  diminish  the  power 
of  the  feudal  nobility  by  his  support  of  the  burgesses.  Under 
him  Parliament  began  to  exist  in  a  definite  form,  and  he  was 
forced  to  recognise  at  least  the  principle  that  the  people  must 
be  taxed  with  their  consent  of  their  representatives. 

The  three  estates  of  the  realm  are  Clergy,  Lords  and 
Commons;  but  the  present  arrangement  of  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  is  in  a  measure  fortuitous  and  there  might  well 
have  been  three,  the  great  barons  in  one,  the  lesser,  or  knights 
of  the  shire  in  another,  and  the  burgesses  in  the  third.  But  the 
clergy  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  most  important  of  all  the 
divisions  of  the  realm,  not  only  in  intelligence,  but  also  in 
their  superior  wealth.  It  is,  however,  in  the  absence  of  statis- 
tics almost  impossible  to  speak  definitely  on  the  financial 
condition  of  the  clerical  order.  They  were  certainly  rich  and 
their  standard  of  life  was  higher  than  that  of  the  laity,  but  as 
a  rule  the  statements  as  to  the  immense  property  owned  by 
them  are  exaggerated  by  jealousy.  Even  in  the  year  1400  the 
House  of  Commons  estimated  that  there  were  forty  thousand 
benefices  in  England  when  there  were  not  more  than  a  quarter 
of  that  number.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Church  in  England  had 
prelates  and  dignitaries  with  vast  revenues,  and  also  an  in- 
ferior clergy  on  the  verge  of  poverty.  But  a  great  prelate  or 
abbot  had  to  maintain  an  almost  royal  state,  and  needed  all 
he  possessed  to  feed  and  clothe  the  retinue  necessary  to  his 
office.  Assuredly  the  clergy  were  heavily  taxed.  Both  Pope  and 


ENGLAND 


317 


King  made  heavy  demands  on  them.  Sometimes  a  tenth,  a 
fifth,  even  half  of  their  revenues  was  relinquished.  Thus  their 
House,  afterwards  known  as  Convocation,  had  to  consider  the 
question  of  taxation  in  the  same  manner  as  the  lay  Parliaments. 
Originally  there  were  four  houses  of  Bishops,  Abbots,  Deans 
and  Arch-deacons,  and  Clergy. 

As  there  were  two  ecclesiastical  provinces  of  Canterbury 
and  York,  there  were  two  independent  Convocations,  each  under 
its  own  Primate,  but  the  importance  of  York  was  insignificant 
indeed    compared    with   that    of   Canterbury.    The    north    of 
England  was  in  many  parts  almost  without  inhabitants  and 
was  only  slowly  recovering  from  the  harrying  of  Northumbria 
by  the  Conquerors.  There  were,  since  1 133,  but  two  suffragans 
of  York,   Durham   and  Carlisle,  whereas  few  archbishops  in 
Europe  had  more  than  Canterbury  with  its  seventeen  dependent 
Sees.  In  speaking,  therefore,  of  Convocation,  that  of  the  South- 
ern Province  is  often  meant,  whilst  the  fact  that  the  Northern 
also   has   one   is   forgotten.   The   property   of  the   Church   of 
England  down  to  the  seventeenth    century  continued  to  be 
taxed  by  the  two  Convocations,  consisting  later  of  the  bishops 
in  one  of  the   houses,   and   Deans,   Archdeacons,   and   repre- 
sentatives of  the  Cathedral  chapters  and  clergy  in  the  other. 
The  story  of  the  thirteenth  century  is  a  record  of  constant 
demands  made  by  the  King  or  the  Pope  on  the  revenues  of 
the  Church. 

The  clergy  were  not  eager  to  contribute  to  either.  They 
had  as  little  sympathy  with  the  Pope's  schemes  against  the 
Empire  as  they  had  with  those  of  Edward  I  for  the  recovery 
of  Guienne,  which  provoked  the  remonstrances  of  the  great 
Earls  of  Norfolk  and  Hereford.  This  grievance  on  the  part  of 
the  clergy  may  have  led  to  the  promulgation  of  Boniface 
VIII's  bull  Clericis  laicosy  which  caused  so  much  trouble 
in  England  and  brought  vengeance  on  the  Pope  from  France. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  every  clerical  corporation, 
as  well  as  every  individual  holding  a  benefice,  was  a  trustee. 
The  church  lands  had  been  given  to  God  and  were  inalienable. 
It  also  might  be  pleaded  that  they  were  held  for  the  benefit  of 


318  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  poor,  who  certainly  profited  by  the  benefactions  of  the 
clergy  and  monks,  and  that  the  money  ought  not  to  be  de- 
voted to  secular  purposes.  Boniface  VIII  sought  to  protect 
the  clergy  against  exaction  by  forbidding  them  to  pay  taxes 
without  the  consent  of  the  Pope.  He  did  so  in  the  most  pro- 
vocative manner,  as  the  opening  words  of  the  bull  testify. 
"Antiquity  has  told  us  that  the  laity  have  been  from  of  old 
troublesome  to  the  clergy." 

The  English  clergy  were  well  aware  that  their  monarch 
was  not  a  man  to  be  trifled  with  and  that  it  was  impossible  to 
obey  the  Pope's  command.  The  Primate,  Robert  of  Winchelsea, 
however,  was  determined  to  resist  Edward  I,  who  forthwith 
outlawed  the  clergy,  declaring  that  if  they  would  not  contribute 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  realm  they  should  not  have  the 
benefit  of  the  protection  of  his  officers.  The  obnoxious  bull 
had  therefore  no  effect. 

Though  Edward  I  had  been  a  Crusader  and  had  been 
always  a  devoted  son  of  the  Church,  his  policy  foreshadowed 
that  of  his  successors  in  limiting  its  power.  As  the  royal  rev- 
enues depended  partly  on  the  vast  estates  of  the  Crown  and 
also  on  the  many  feudal  dues  occurring  on  the  death  of  his 
tenants  and  on  wardships  and  marriages,  any  acquisition  of 
a  corporate  body,  which  never  dies,  was  to  the  prejudice  of 
the  King.  Land  held  thus  was  said  to  be  held  by  the  dead  hand 
(in  mortmain),  and  this  was  prevented  for  the  future  by  the 
statute  de  viris  religiosis,  which  forbids  lands  to  be  transferred 
to  monasteries  or  similar  institutions  to  the  detriment  of  the 
Crown.  This  is  the  earliest  statute  of  Mortmain.1  The  whole 
legislation  and  general  attitude  of  Edward  I  towards  the  Church 

1  It  is  most  instructive  for  the  student  to  examine  three  maps  in  the  Historical 
Atlas  of  Modern  Europe:  (i)  England  and  Wales  in  1086,  (2)  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I, 
(3)  under  the  House  of  Lancaster.  (1)  and  (3)  are  by  James  Tait,  M.A.,  and  (2)  by 
Professor  Tout.  In  these  the  great  landowning  families  and  their  estates  are  indicated. 
Very  few  of  the  names  of  those  who  held  land  under  the  Conqueror  are  repeated  in 
1290.  By  1455  almost  all  the  great  families,  Beauchamp  (of  Warwick),  Bohun,  Bigod, 
Clare,  Lacy,  Mortimer  and  Warenne,  have  disappeared  and  a  new  aristocracy  has 
arisen.  The  fact  that  the  old  Norman  houses  were  so  short  lived  may  account  for  the 
rapid  progress  of  the  fusion  of  the  two  races. 


ENGLAND  3J9 

shows  how  rapidly  the  royal  influence  had  been  on  the  increase. 
This  was  aided  by  the  subsequent  misfortunes  of  the  Popes 
and  their  exile  to  Avignon.  The  days  of  excommunication  and 
interdicts  when  sovereigns  trembled  were  passing  away. 
Little  is  heard  after  Winchelsey  of  Primates  defying  the 
sovereign. 

This  very  brief  survey  of  the  ecclesiastical  history  of 
England  will  have  shown  how  marked  the  change  had  been 
from  the  time  of  the  Conquest  to  the  death  of  Edward  I.  One 
of  the  most  visible  effects  of  the  coming  of  the  Normans  and 
the  revival  of  the  Church  under  their  influence  remains  to  this 
day  in  the  cathedrals.  Almost  every  important  cathedral 
church  reveals  its  Norman  origin.  The  rich  architecture  of 
clerestory  of  lady-chapel  of  west  front  and  presbytery  may 
belong  to  later  periods,  but  the  naves  are  often  severely  Nor- 
man with  their  substantial  pillars  and  their  romanesque 
arches.  Outside  the  architecture  may  suggest  the  richer  de- 
signs of  a  later  date,  but  the  kernel  of  all  is  the  work  of  the 
builders    who    came    with    the    conquerors    in    the    eleventh 

century. 

The  year  after  the  Conquest  the  Saxon  cathedral  at  Can- 
terbury was  burned  down;  and  Lanfranc  on  his  appointment 
found  it  in  ruins.  He  at  once  set  to  work  to  rebuild  it  and  he 
is  said  to  have  completed  it  in  seven  years.  Even  during  An- 
selm's  days  with  all  their  troubles  the  work  went  on  under  the 
Priors  Ernulf  and  Conrad  (1093-1130).  The  first  duty  of 
every  bishop  seems  to  have  been  to  erect  a  cathedral  superior 
to  anything  which  had  hitherto  been  known  in  the  island. 

York  like  Canterbury  had  its  Saxon  Church  destroyed  by 
fire  in  1069;  and  the  whole  diocese  had  been  devastated  by  the 
Conqueror,  so  that  not  a  single  religious  house  was  left  in  it. 
No  sooner  was  a  Norman  Archbishop,  Thomas  of  Bayeux, 
appointed  than  he  built  the  cathedral,  but  his  work  did  not 
endure;  for  Walter  de  Gray  (1 216-1255)  rebuilt  it  in  the  then 
prevailing  Gothic  style. 

Far  more  permanent  was  the  work  of  William  of  St.  Carilef, 
Bishop  of  Durham,  where  the  body  of  St.  Cuthbert  had  re- 


320  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

posed  since  999.  The  Conqueror,  seeing  the  strategic  importance 
of  the  place,  had  built  the  castle,  and  the  Bishop  made  his 
cathedral  one  of  the  enduring  glories  of  England.  He  began 
but  two  years  before  his  death  in  1095.  He  is  said  to  have  de- 
signed the  choir,  "one  of  the  greatest  things  done  even  in  an 
age  of  giants."  The  next  Bishop  was  Flambard,  the  infamous 
minister  of  William  Rufus,  who  had  finished  the  nave  and  built 
part  of  the  western  towers  by  his  death  in  11 28.  Nothing  can 
better  illustrate  the  character  of  the  men  who  subjected 
England  than  the  strength  and  magnificence  of  Durham. 

Norwich  and  Lincoln,  two  other  cathedrals  of  Sees  re- 
moved from  villages  to  places  of  commercial  or  strategic  im- 
portance, attest  the  skill  of  the  new  episcopate  as  builders. 
The  East  Anglican  bishopric,  after  having  been  situated  at 
Elmham  and  moved  since  the  Conquest,  was  finally  in  1095 
transferred  to  Norwich.  Here  the  Conqueror  had  built  a  castle 
and  established  a  market;  and  the  place,  commanding  as  it  did 
the  internal  navigation  of  Norfolk,  grew  to  be  one  of  the  most 
important  cities  in  the  Kingdom.  Hither  Herbert  de  Losinga 
removed  the  See  from  Thetford  and  set  to  work  to  build  a 
magnificent  cathedral  with  a  monastery  for  sixty  monks.  To 
this  day  the  plan  of  Losinga's  cathedral  remains  to  illustrate 
a  Norman  church  in  the  eleventh  century,  with  the  bishops' 
throne  in  its  original  place  facing  the  people  and  overlooking 
the  high  altar,  and  the  nave  one  of  the  longest  in  England. 
Lincoln  was  in  the  district  which  had  suffered  worse  from  the 
ravages  of  the  Danes,  and  the  original  see  of  Lindsay  had 
been  moved  to  Dorchester  in  Oxfordshire,  to  the  other  end  of 
the  diocese.  It  was  transferred  to  Lincoln,  a  place  of  great 
strategic  importance,  by  Remigius  in  1075;  and  by  1092,  the 
cathedral,  now  one  of  the  most  magnificent  in  the  country, 

was  dedicated. 

■  It  would  be  impossible  to  omit  the  name  of  one  of  the  most 
famous  builders  of  the  early  Norman  age,  Gundulf,  Bishop  of 
Rochester,  a  friend  of  Lanfranc,  who  had  been  nominated  to 
his  see  which  was  in  the  gift  of  the  Primate.  He  restored  his 
ruined  Cathedral,  and  was  employed  by  the  Conqueror  to 


ENGLAND  321 

build  the  White  Tower  in  the  Tower  of  London,  and,  in  the 
days  of  William  Rufus,  Rochester  Castle. 

The  above  does  little  more  than  suggest  the  change  that 
came  over  England  in  respect  to  Church  building  alone  since 
the  coming  of  the  Normans;  and,  it  may  be  added,  since  the 
security  they  had  brought  by  making  Danish  invasions  im- 
possible. The  monasteries  and  other  religious  houses  almost 
equalled,  if  some  did  not  surpass,  the  cathedrals,  and  the  fact 
that  these  became  numerous,  not  only  in  the  south,  but  in  the 
devastated  north,  proves  that  there  had  been  great  progress 
in  national  prosperity. 

The  impulse  given  by  the  Normans  was  continued  through- 
out the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries;  but  the  ground  plans 
of  such  famous  Norman  churches  which  were  either  cathedrals 
or  subsequently  became  so,  indicate  that  the  main  structures 
were  completed  not  very  long  after  the  Conquest.  The  ad- 
juncts belong  to  later  ages  up  to  the  Reformation;  but  the  most 
important  parts  were  already  there.  To  mention  but  a  few,  it 
was  so  with  Ely,  Norwich,  Durham,  Peterborough  (the  west 
front  dates  from  the  thirteenth  century),  and  Salisbury  (built 
between  1220  and  1258).  One  cannot  fail  to  be  amazed  at  the 
creative  vigour  of  this  period. 

In  addition  to  the  energy  with  which  cathedrals  and 
monasteries  were  designed  and  constructed  is  the  intellectual 
activity  which  has  been  elsewhere  mentioned.  The  universities 
had  appeared;  and  Englishmen  were  making  their  mark  both 
as  teachers  and  students  in  the  world  school  of  Paris.  Educa- 
tion was  conducted  on  sound  and  truly  democratic  lines,  being 
neither  forced  on  an  unwilling  proletariat,  nor  restricted  to  a 
privileged  class.  Never  were  more  boundless  prospects  of  power 
and  influence  open  before  any  youth  of  promise.  Men  of 
humble  birth,  but  almost  invariably  of  exceptional  ability, 
rose  to  be  Popes.  The  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury,  which  had 
precedence  over  all  others  in  the  world,  and  gave  the  holder 
the  place  at  a  council  at  the  right  foot  of  the  Pope,  as  well 
as  authority  over  all  his  sovereign's  foreign  churches,  was  often 
attained  by  prelates  whose  parents  were  too  obscure  to  be 


322  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

mentioned  in  their  biographies.  Yet  these  humbly  born  men 
raised  to  the  highest  positions  seem  to  have  comported  them- 
selves with  dignity,  and  this  may  be  attributed  in  a  measure 
to  the  careful  discipline  under  which  they  had  been  trained, 
and  says  much  for  the  monasteries  as  places  of  education.  It 
was  this  power  of  throwing  open  a  career  to  all  that  kept  the 
church  in  touch  with  the  people  in  both  France  and  England. 
In  Germany  it  was  otherwise,  owing  to  the  way  in  which  the 
most  important  ecclesiastical  positions  gave  the  incumbent 
sovereign  rank,  and  therefore  cut  him  completely  out  of  pop- 
ular sympathy  as  the  member  of  an  exclusive  aristocracy. 

In  the  difficulties  which  arose  with  the  Roman  See  there 
is  a  perceptible  change.  At  first  nearly  every  interference  by 
the  Pope  was  beneficial.  So  far  as  his  Italian  policy  was  un- 
affected by  his  action,  he  was  a  just  and  impartial  arbitrator. 
Able  as  were  many  of  the  Norman  ecclesiastics,  they  were  no 
match  for  such  princes  as  William  Rufus,  Henry  II,  or  John, 
nor  were  they  capable  of  stemming  the  anarchy  of  the  reign 
of  Stephen.  It  was  no  small  advantage  to  them  to  be  able  to 
refer  their  cause  to  an  external  tribunal,  which  knew  how  to 
make  itself  respected.  Down  to  the  surrender  of  John  to 
Paudulf,  the  agent  of  Innocent  III,  the  growing  patriotism  of 
England  found  a  friend  in  the  Pope,  whose  intervention  in  the 
matters  of  Becket  and  Stephen  Langton  was  discreet,  in  that  it 
tried  to  reconcile  parties  mutually  aggrieved  and  to  bring  about 
a  reasonable  compromise.  Innocent  III  made  a  fatal  mistake 
in  condemning  Magna  Charta,  and  his  successors  aggravated 
matters  by  making  the  weak  Henry  III  a  tool  in  their  enter- 
prises in  Italy  and  Sicily.  This  fostered  an  independence  of 
spirit  which  found  expression  in  the  acts  of  Simon  de  Montfort, 
and  the  writings  of  Matthew  Paris. 

In  Edward  I  there  appeared  for  the  first  time  an  English 
King.  That  sagacious  monarch  saw  the  importance  of  his 
kingdom,  and  had  profited  by  the  lessons  of  his  father's  reign 
by  learning  to  respect  the  feelings  of  its  inhabitants.  His  ob- 
ject to  make  himself  the  paramount  authority  in  the  entire 
island  brought  him  into  conflict  with  the  Scots,  under  conditions 


ENGLAND  323 

which    interest    the    ecclesiastical    as    well    as    the    secular 
historian. 

Just  as  the  English  kings  owed  feudal  dependence  for 
Normandy  and  other  continental  possessions  to  the  king  of 
France,  so  did  the  Scottish  king  acknowledge  the  overlordship 
of  the  English  crown,  possibly  for  lands  held  by  him  in  England. 
But  it  was  easy  for  a  superior  to  claim  that  his  vassal  owed  him 
homage  in  respect  for  estates  or  kingdoms  which  he  had  ac- 
quired elsewhere.  Thus  the  King  of  France  might  assert  that 
the  King  of  England,  and  not  merely  the  Duke  of  Normandy, 
was  his  vassal,  and  the  King  of  England  might  make  a  similar 
claim,  not  only  on  the  Earl  of  Huntington,  but  on  the  same 
person  as  King  of  Scotland.  But  however  this  may  be,  the 
Scottish  King  seems  to  have  recognised  the  English  as  his 
liege  lord,  and  Edward  I  acted  in  that  capacity. 

The  death  of  the  Maid  of  Norway  in  1290  left  the  Scottish 
throne  open  to  a  number  of  nobles,  none  of  whom  could  claim 
direct  royal  descent.  Edward  acted  as  arbitrator  and  finally 
decided  in  favour  of  John  Baliol,  Lord  of  Galloway,  the  un- 
doubted heir,  as  he  was  descended  from  the  eldest  daughter  of 
David,  Earl  of  Huntington,  brother  of  King  William  the  Lion. 
Baliol  did  homage  for  the  crown;  but  his  subjects,  provoked 
by  the  feudal  demands  of  Edward,  raised  a  rebellion  which  was 
crushed  by  the  English.  Baliol  was  condemned  to  an  easy  im- 
prisonment, from  which  he  was  liberated  at  the  request  of  the 
Pope,  and  died  some  years  later  almost  unnoticed.  Scotland 
was  completely  subdued  by  Edward,  till  the  patriotism  of 
William  Wallace  gave  the  country  a  brief  period  of  independ- 
ence under  his  regency.  The  Scots  then  appealed  to  Boniface 
VIII,  denying  that  their  crown  had  ever  been  dependent  on 
that  of  England,  because  of  right  it  was  an  allodium  of  the 
Roman  Church.  Boniface  wrote  to  Edward  urging  him  to 
abandon  his  unjust  claims  over  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See  and 
argued  that  any  homage  done  by  the  Kings  of  Scotland  to  the 
English  monarch  had  been  for  other  possessions  which  they  hap- 
pened to  hold.  The  whole  incident  is  a  remarkable  example  of 
the  anxiety  shown  by  both  parties  to  prove  that  their  claims 


324  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

were  legal.  Edward  ordered  every  document  in  his  kingdom  to 
be  collected,  which  could  throw  light  on  the  point  at  issue. 
Parliament  answered  the  Pope  that  they  would  not  permit  the 
king,  even  if  he  wished  it,  to  abandon  his  rights  over  Scotland; 
and  Edward  appealed  to  the  voice  of  history  to  justify  his  claim. 
In  the  days  of  Eli  and  Samuel,  Brute  the  Trojan  had  cleared 
Albion  of  giants  and  called  it  Britain  after  his  own  name.  He 
divided  his  kingdom  between  his  three  sons,  Locrine,  Albanac, 
and  Camber,  giving  preeminence  to  the  elder  Locrine,  who  es- 
tablished his  throne  in  London.  The  Scots  advanced  an  his- 
torical plea  of  equal  weight.  They  are  the  offspring   of  Scota, 
daughter  of  Pharaoh,  whose  descendants  settled  in  Northern 
Ireland,  and  wrested  Scotland  from  the  descendants  of  Brute. 
Arguments  more  cogent  to  us  were  advanced,  and  the  serious 
care  to  put  Edward  in  the  right  as  to  his  claim  shows  that  in 
a  violent  and  warlike  age  force  was  deemed  inferior  to  a  claim 
justified  by  law.  It  was  by  other  means,  however,  that  the 
complete  independence  of  Scotland  was  secured. 

The  reign  of  Henry  II  was  marked  by  England's  entering 
into  direct  relations  with  Ireland,  the  Norman  conquest  of 
which  is  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  episodes  in  history.  With 
all  its  cruel  severity  that  of  England  had  the  merit  of  being 
systematic,  and  was  guided  by  a  master  mind.  The  most  hor- 
rible of  William's  acts,  like  the  harrying  of  Northumbria,  was 
dictated  by  at  least  some  sort  of  policy:  for  by  leaving  the 
north  a  desert,  the  Conqueror  aimed  at  securing  the  south  from 
invasion.  Moreover,  William  was  able  in  a  measure  to  control 
his  barons,  and  to  settle  them  in  his  new  dominions  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  any  of  them  to  set  up  in- 
dependent principalities.  The  conquered  country  had  from  of 
old  laws  and  institutions,  suitable  to  a  civilized  people,  which 
were  cherished  with  pride  and  affection  by  its  inhabitants,  and 
were  studiously  respected  by  their  conquerors.  Circumstances 
also   made  the  fusion  of  the   French   and   English   into  one 
people  take  place  rapidly;  and  this  was  aided  by  the  fact  that 
the  French  speaking  Norman  was  fundamentally  of  the  same 
blood  as  the  Danes  and  Anglo-Saxons  who  made  the  English 


ENGLAND  325 

speaking  race.  But  it  was  otherwise  with  Ireland;  the  main 
part  of  the  inhabitants  were  in  a  far  lower  state  of  civilization 
than  the  invaders,  and  their  institutions  were  based  on  a  tribal 
law  of  their  own.  The  invasion  was  somewhat  of  the  nature  of 
an  adventurous  enterprise,  made  without  definite  plan  or 
system,  and  brought  with  it  few  compensating  advantages. 
The  Normans  at  least  gave  England  the  best  civilization  of  the 
time;  they  brought  over  their  best  clergy  as  well  as  their  best 
soldiers,  and  their  coming  was  the  signal  for  the  revival  of 
religion,  culture  and  learning.  They  held  down  the  Saxon 
population,  and  were  guilty  of  acts  of  enormous  tyranny,  but 
they  imposed  respect;  and  in  the  end  adopted  their  language, 
and  the  best  of  their  institutions.  Edward  I  at  least  conquered 
the  Welsh,  who  retained  their  language  and  many  of  their 
national  prejudices,  but  were  little  galled  by  the  contempt 
with  which  the  Irish  were  regarded.  With  Scotland  the  coun- 
try was  for  a  time  subdued  by  England;  but  the  national 
spirit  produced  heroic  deliverers  in  men  like  Moray,  Wallace 
and  the  Bruces,  who  after  all  were  of  the  same  blood  as  their 
oppressors.  In  Ireland  it  was  otherwise.  There  was  no  great 
national  effort  for  freedom,  and  at  the  same  time  no  real  per- 
manent subjugation.  The  Conqueror  had  the  wisdom  to  see 
that  the  Crown  of  England  was  his  greatest  possession;  and 
devoted  his  energies  to  securing  the  permanence  of  his  rule. 
But  there  was  no  such  thoroughness  displayed  in  the  Conquest 
of  Ireland.  The  Norman  barons  did  not  attempt  to  raise  the 
people  to  a  higher  level;  on  the  whole  they  tended  to  adopt 
the  lower  civilization  and  to  become  more  Irish  than  the  Irish 
Hiberniores  Hibernis.  They  held  districts,  but  not  the  whole 
country.  A  real  Anglo-Norman  conquest  would  have  been  an 
untold  blessing  to  the  land,  whose  fertile  fields  and  unrivalled 
harbours  would  have  made  it  prosperous,  whilst  its  people 
under  a  firm  and  equitable  rule  would  have  learned  to  appre- 
ciate the  benefits  of  a  higher  civilization.  But  the  Plantagenets 
did  not  realise  that  it  was  as  important  to  make  Ireland  one 
realm  with  England,  as  it  was  the  principality  of  Wales.  Occu- 
pied with  continental  and  domestic  affairs,  they  left  the  work 


326  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

unfinished;  and  a  conquest  which  would  have  been  soon  forgot- 
ten, had  it  been  thorough,  has  become  a  perennial  grievance  be- 
cause in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  it  was  incomplete. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  dwell  on  the  immense  services 
rendered  by  the  Irish  Christians  to  religion,  art  and  civilization 
in  the  darkest  age  of  the  Church.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  they  were  the  most  indefatigable  missionares  and  schol- 
ars of  the  age;  and  that  the  conversion  of  the  English  was  due 
largely  to  their  efforts,  nor  must  the  monuments  of  their  pro- 
ficiency in  art,  especially  in  their  crosses  and  illuminated  manu- 
scripts, be  ignored.  But  in  the  twelfth  century  the  anarchy  of 
the  Church  of  Ireland  had  become  a  scandal.  "Under  native 
and  Christian   chiefs,"  to  quote  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia, 
"churches  were  destroyed,  church  lands  appropriated  by  lay- 
men, monastic  schools  deserted,  lay  abbots  ruled  at  Armagh 
and  elsewhere.  Bishops  were  consecrated  without  sees  and  con- 
ferred orders  for  money,  there  was  chaos  in  church  government 
and    corruption    everywhere."   The   one    bright    spot    in    this 
dismal  picture  is  the  episcopate  of  St.  Malachy,  the  friend  of 
Bernard,  who,  as  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  did  his  utmost  to 
reform  matters.  He  died  at  Clairvaux  in  1148,  in  the  arms  of 
St.  Bernard,  having  been  previously  appointed  Papal  legate  for 
Ireland.  In  11 54  Henry  II  obtained  a  bull  from  Hadrian  IV 
allowing  him  to  conquer  Ireland  in  order  to  restore  its  ecclesi- 
astical discipline  and  the  due  payment  of  Peter's  pence;  but 
nothing  was  done  till   1168.   In  that  year  Dermot,  King  of 
Leinster,  who  had  been  driven  out  of  the  island,  did  homage  to 
Henry  II  for  his  dominions,  and  obtained  permission  to  enlist 
adventurers  to  assist  him  to  recover  them.  Richard  de  Clare, 
surnamed  Strongbow,  and  two  Welsh  gentlemen,  Robert  Fitz 
Stephen  and  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  men  who  were  in  distressed 
circumstances  and  in  disgrace  with  their  king,  undertook  the 
expedition.  The  Irish  were  no  match  for  the  mail  clad  Nor- 
mans,   who    took   Wexford    and    defeated    Dermot's    enemy, 
Donald,  prince  of  Ossory.  A  heap  of  two  hundred  heads  was 
laid  at  the  feet  of  the  victorious  chieftain,  who  recognising  the 
head  of  his  foe,  who  had  blinded  his  son,  seized  it  and  tore 


ENGLAND  327 

off  the  nose  with  his  teeth.  Henry  II  himself  visited  Ireland;  it 
was  not  till  he  had  had  experience  of  the  trouble  of  holding 
what  had  been  acquired  that  he  bethought  him  of  the  bull  of 
Hadrian  which  was  read  to  the  clergy  at  Cashel. 

Henry,  with  the  permission  of  the  Pope,  made  his  son  John 
Lord  of  Ireland.  In  121 2  John,  as  King,  visited  Dublin  to  re- 
ceive the  homage  of  the  native  princes,  established  English  law, 
and  divided  the  occupied  portion  into  counties.  But  the  story 
of  intestine  feuds  and  abortive  rebellions  continued  beyond  the 
close  of  our  period,  and  nothing  was  done  in  the  Middle  Ages 
to  make  the  English  government  efFective.  Trade  was  carried 
on  in  the  principal  seaports,  but  the  country  elsewhere  was 
seething  with  anarchy  and  barbarism.  The  people  allied  them- 
selves with  any  power  hostile  to  England,  beginning  with  the 
Scots  under  the  Bruces,  for  their  antipathy  antedates  any  re- 
ligious difference  between  the  two  countries,  nor  did  their 
common  acknowledgment  of  the  faith  of  the  universal  Church 
create  any  bond  of  union  between  them.  A  deeper  gulf  parts 
the  two  races  than  even  that  of  religious  opinion;  and  the  age 
long  quarrel  has  been  the  result  of  a  mutual  disregard  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  Christian  religion. 

AUTHORITIES 

For  the  early  church  history  of  England  consult  W.  Bright,  Early 
English  Church  History,  Freeman's  Norman  Conquest  of  England,  R.  W. 
Church's  Life  of  St.  Anselm,  and  Hook's  Lives  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canter- 
bury,V ols.  II— III-  For  the  Constitutional  History  of  the  Church  see  Makower. 
Dr.  Lingard's  History  of  England,  Vol.  II,  ought  to  be  read  as  a  presentation 
of  the  period  by  a  learned  and  generally  fair-minded  Roman  Catholic.  For 
the  question  of  the  genuineness  of  Hadrian  IV's  bull  concerning  Ireland, 
consult  Mann,  Lives  of  the  Popes;  this  writer  discusses  its  genuineness.  The 
four  most  interesting  contemporary  writers  are  Ordericus  Vitalis,  Roger  of 
Wendover,  Matthew  Paris,  and  Geraldus  Cambrensis,  all  of  which  are  trans- 
lated into  English  in  Bohn's  Antiquarian  library.  For  additional  reference 
see  Charles  Gross,  Sources  and  Literature  of  English  History,  from  the  Earliest 
Times  to  about  1485,  second  revised  and  enlarged  edition,  1915. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A    SURVEY   OF    SOCIETY 

The  past  and  the  present  —  Progress  —  The  people  —  Serfs  —  Free  tenants  — 
Feudal  justice  —  Anarchy  —  Precarious  condition  of  peasantry  —  General  con- 
ditions of  life  —  Castles  —  Outlaws  —  The  Cities  —  Civic  Institutions  —  Typical 
medieval  cities:  (a)  Rome;  (b)  Florence;  (c)  Milan;  (d)  Pisa,  Genoa,  and  Venice  — 
(e)  Paris  and  London  —  London  —  The  trades  in  the  cities  —  Apprentices,  crafts- 
men, and  masters  —  Extension  of  commerce  —  Usury  —  The  Jews  —  Evasions  of 
the  law  —  Failure  of  legislation  against  usury  —  Extent  of  medieval  commerce  — 
The  Hansas  —  Medieval  art  —  The  Churc  hand  art  —  Popular  religion  —  Re- 
moteness of  God  —  Local  saints  —  Relics  —  The  lower  clergy  —  The  Mass  — 
Low  condition  of  morality  —  Clerical  marriages  —  Irreverence  —  Difficulties  of 
reformers  —  Attempts  to  stem  superstition. 

In  describing  the  condition  of  humanity  in  a  bygone  age  it 
is  advisable  to  steer  a  middle  course  so  as  to  avoid  the  Scylla 
of  antiquity  and  the  Charybdis  of  modernity.  The  ancients 
placed  the  golden  age  behind  them  and  imagined  that,  when 
ignorant  and  uncomfortable,  mankind  was  in  a  state  of  bliss. 
We  on  the  contrary  are  disposed  to  believe  that  happiness  is 
reserved  for  future  generations;  and,  because  we  profess  our 
faith  in  progress,  imagine  that  men  in  a  less  advanced  state 
of  civilization  than  ourselves  were  necessarily  degraded  and 
miserable.  But  the  historian,  whose  business  is  neither  to  restore 
the  past  nor  to  anticipate  the  future,  need  not  do  more  than 
attempt  to  depict,  as  far  as  lies  in  his  power,  the  conditions 
under  which  men  lived  in  circumstances  entirely  different 
from  his  own. 

Perhaps  for  the  reason  that  nobody,  with  the  rare  exception 
of  such  men  as  Friar  Bacon,  believed  in  the  material  progress 
of  the  human  race,  the  record  from  the  opening  of  the  eleventh 
to  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  was  one  of  considerable 
advance.  Although,  therefore,  no  reasonable  man  would  de- 
sire to  reproduce  medieval  conditions  of  life,  and  would    be 

compelled  to  acknowledge  that  many  of  them  would  be  in- 

328 


A   SURVEY  OF   SOCIETY  329 

tolerably  repulsive  to  him,  he  is  compelled  to  admit  that  there 
was  inaugurated  a  steady  process  of  development  to  which 
mankind  still  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude. 

The  condition  of  the  common  people  was  a  blot  on  medieval, 
as  it  is  on  modern,  society.  But  their  misery  was  due,  less  to 
an  unsound  theory,  than  to  circumstances.  In  one  respect,  it 
was  constantly  improving  by  the  gradual  disappearance  of 
serfdom;  but  for  generations  the  sufferings  of  the  lower 
orders  did  not  find  expression,  as  they  did  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries.  In  the  period  of  the  wandering  of  the 
nations  the  plague  of  foreign  invasion  was  most  felt  by  the  de- 
fenceless peasantry;  when  this  ceased,  the  chief  trouble  was 
due  to  the  general  anarchy  which  ensued,  and  above  all  to  the 
almost  universal  prevalence  of  private  war.  But  by  the  thir- 
teenth century,  if  not  earlier,  life  was  in  a  measure  reduced 
to  a  system,  under  which  each  family  had  a  certain  fixity  of 
tenure  on  the  land  which  they  cultivated.  The  condition  of 
society  was  almost  entirely  agricultural,  and  its  relationships 
were  those  of  the  lord  to  his  villein. 

As  coin  was  scarce,  payments  were  usually  made  in  kind, 
or  by  military  or  laborious  service.  The  villein  held  his  land 
on  condition  of  a  payment  of  part  of  the  produce,  of  following 
his  lord  in  the  wars,  or  of  working  on  his  estate.  But  he  could 
transmit  his  inheritance  with  its  obligations  to  his  children* 
and  legally,  his  position  was  assured.  Land  was  regarded  less  as 
investment  than  as  a  source  of  power  entailing  much  responsi- 
bility, and  there  was  no  raising  of  rents  or  capricious  evictions. 
In  an  orderly  society  with  an  efficient  government  the  condi- 
tion of  the  peasant  would  have  been  by  no  means  intolerable. 
The  lowest  class  of  this  agricultural  society  were  the  serfs 
(servi),  who,  however,  were  not  slaves  in  the  ancient  or  modern 
sense,  in  so  far  as  they  were  not  liable  to  be  sold,  nor  were 
they  regarded  as  chattels  to  be  disposed  of  at  the  good  pleasure 
of  their  owners.  They  were  glebes  adscript!,  bound  to  the  land 
and  not  free  to  depart  from  it  without  consent  of  the  lord. 
If  they  tried  to  escape  from  their  settlement,  the  lord  had  the 
right  to  pursue  them  and  take  them  back.  They  had  also  to 


330  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

pay  a  capitation  tax  and  might  not  marry  outside  the  lord's 
lands  without  his  consent.  If  a  serf  died  without  children,  his 
land  passed  at  once  to  his  lord;  but  it  might  be  redeemed  by 
his  kindred.  If  a  free  man  occupied  land  held  by  a  servile 
tenure,  he  submitted  to  the  conditions  of  a  serf. 

The  free  man  was  subject  to  his  lord  only  in  so  far  that  he 
held  his  land  on  certain  payments  in  money,  kind,  or  service. 
The  technical  term  for  other  exactions,  when  the  lord  gave 
nothing  in  return,  was  exploitation.  As   a  rule,  however,  the 
charges  were  fixed  and  did  not  change,  though  in  early  days 
the  taxes  and  forced  labour  were  at  the  discretion  (a  merci)  of 
the  lord.  There  were  also  many  seigniorial  rights,  by  which 
payments  were  demanded,  as  when  a  sale  was  made,  or  a  fine 
was  paid  before  a  man  could  succeed  to  a  property,  or  tolls 
were  levied  on  roads,  bridges,  and  ferries.  There  were  in  addi- 
tion what  were  called  banalities,  i.e.,  things  commanded  by  the 
ban,  or  proclamation  of  the  lord,  such  as  bringing  the  grain  to 
his  mill,  the  bread  to  his  oven,  or  the  grapes  to  his  press,  and 
paying  a  price  for  their  use.  But  more  oppressive  than  these 
was  the  corvee,  or  forced  labour  on  the  estate. 

The  lord,   who   might   be   any   one,    king,   count,    knight, 
bishop,  or  a  corporation  like  a  monastery,  exercised  judicial 
powers,  in  some  instances  distinguished  as  "high  and  inferior 
justice"   {haute  et  basse  justice).  As  the  lords  acted  both  as 
prosecutors  and  judge,  their  tenants  were  practically  at  their 
mercy;  and  when  they  held  the  right  of  the  scaffold,  the  life 
of  every  dependant  was  in  the  hand  of  a  master.  These  burthens, 
however,  were  often  not  intolerable,  and  were  the  less  felt  be- 
cause relief  could  generally  be  bought.  The  territorial  magnates 
usually  needed  ready  money,  and  were  prepared  to  sell  their 
rights  at  a  price.  This  was  a  reason  for  the  disappearance  of 
serfdom,  as  it  was  more  advantageous  to  let  the  serfs  buy  their 
freedom  than  to  keep  them  in  bondage.  The  labourer  eventu- 
ally took  the  place  of  the  serf. 

The  sufferings  of  the  people  were  chiefly  due  to  the  anarchy 
of  the  age.  The  population  was  probably  considerable,  as  where 
the  standard  of  living  is  low,  and  there  is  no  opportunity  to 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  33 1 

migrate,  births  are  sure  to  be  numerous,  though  the  death  rate 
is  high.  Still,  according  to  feudal  law,  the  tenant  might  enjoy 
the  prospect  of  being  undisturbed;  and  he  knew  tolerably 
certainly  what  he  was  expected  to  pay.  But  practically  he  was 
never  safe;  for  at  any  moment  his  lands  might  be  ravaged  by 
a  neighbouring  baron  at  war  with  his  master.  His  inability  to 
cope  with  the  powers  of  nature  made  him  the  victim  of  bad 
seasons,  floods,  droughts,  and  epidemics;  he  was  dependent  on 
the  caprice,  not  so  much  of  his  legitimate  landlord,  as  of  the 
steward  or  the  intendant  of  the  manor,  often  one  of  his  own 
class. 

The  peasantry  throughout  Europe  differed  as  to  their  con- 
dition, dependence,  and  mode  of  life.  Some  were  freeholders, 
others  formed  communities.  The  majority  lived  much  as  has 
been  described.  Their  agriculture  was  very  primitive,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  countries  of  Europe  were  woods  and  forests, 
the  haunts  of  wild  beasts,  the  wolf  being  specially  dreaded, 
owing  to  his  number  and  his  depredations.  The  cattle  were 
diminutive  and  puny  compared  with  ours,  and  were  rarely 
eaten.  The  swine,  pastured  in  the  forests,  supplied  the  staple 
of  meat  food.  Communication  was  so  difficult  that,  when  one 
place  enjoyed  abundance,  the  next  village  might  be  starving. 
This  may  appear  a  somewhat  exaggerated  statement  in  view 
of  the  description  of  manors,  especially  in  England,  taken,  it 
must  be  noted,  from  the  estate  rolls  and  similar  documents. 
But  as  none  of  these  are  earlier  than  near  the  close  of  our 
period,  or  about  1265,  they  only  show  the  extent  of  the  progress 
alluded  to  above.  Besides  conditions  in  England  were  unusually 
favourable. 

It  can  scarcely  surprise  anyone  that  a  life  so  rude,  so  iso- 
lated, with  hardly  a  prospect  of  change  in  its  monotony  except 
for  the  worse,  fostered  many  strange  beliefs  and  engendered 
countless  superstitions.  To  understand  the  difficulties  of  the 
Church  at  this  epoch  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  the 
majority  of  Christians  was  composed  of  a  rural  population, 
clustered  in  small  villages,  or  living  precariously  throughout 
the  country,  practicing  a  husbandry  of  the  rudest  description 


332  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  scarcely  emerging  from  absolute  barbarism.  Small  wonder 
therefore  is  it  that  there  were  outbreaks  of  religious  fanati- 
cism like  the  Children's  Crusade,  of  the  Flagellants,  of  strange 
heresies,  and  religious  impostures,  and  that  the  Christianity  of 
many  was  a  thinly  veneered  paganism.  Justice  cannot  be  done 
either  to  the  virtues  or  to  the  errors  of  the  Church,  the  one 
civilizing  influence  which  laboured  among  the  common  people, 
unless  this  be  taken  into  account.  One  can  only  realise  the 
terrors  of  an  interdict  by  remembering  that  the  cessation  of 
the  Church  bell  was  believed  to  expose  the  community  to  the 
destructive  effects  of  every  thunderstorm. 

The  two  chief  causes  of  misery,  especially  in  France,  were  the 
barons'  castles,  and  the  organized  bands  of  outlaws.  The  castles, 
as  has  been  truly  remarked,  in  a  sense  saved  Europe  from  the 
barbarian  invasions.  When  the  country  was  exposed  to  the  rav- 
ages of  Hun  or  Norseman,  the  stone  fortification  proved  an  irre- 
sistible barrier  to  savages  impatient  to  plunder  and  be  gone, 
but  unable  to  remain  and  blockade  a  place  strongly  defended.1 
But  in  countries  little  exposed  to  these  sudden  raids,  the 
feudal  castle  often  became  a  centre  of  unspeakable  oppression. 
Every  history  quotes  the  allusion  to  the  castles,  "filled  with 
devils  and  not  men,"  during  the  anarchy  of  the  reign  of 
Stephen;  nor  is  this  picture  of  England  confined  to  one  country 
or  to  one  period  of  history.  To  the  suppression  of  these  feudal 
strongholds  by  the  Plantagenets,  the  comparative  happiness 
of  the  country  was  mainly  due. 

The  outlaw  has  been  invested  with  such  a  halo  of  romance, 
that  we  are  apt  to  regard  him  as  the  enemy  of  the  aristocracy 
and  the  friend  of  the  oppressed  poor.  Not  infrequently,  how- 
ever, the  baronage  countenanced  and  even  encouraged  the 
brigands.  In  one  instance  the  people  combined  to  suppress  the 
evil.  At  Puy,  in  France,  a  carpenter  incited  by  a  vision  of  the 
Virgin,  formed  a  society  called  the  capuciati,  or  white-hoods, 
and  gathered  a  veritable  army  against  the  lawless  spoliators 
of  their  lands.  For  a  time  their  success  was  great;  but  nobles 
and  Church  agreed  in  seeing  that  such  a  force  might  become 

1  Oman,  The  Dark  Ages,  pp.  5I3-5H- 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  333 

formidable,  and  a  charge  of  heresy  led  to  the  suppression  of 
the  confraternity. 

The  Roman  Empire  had  been  in  ancient  days  based  on  its 
cities  rather  than  on  its  rustic  population;  and  the  country  had 
suffered  by  the  growth  of  towns.  Here  and  there  the  old 
municipal  governments  survived;  but  the  invaders  had  no 
liking  for  the  restraint  of  walled  cities.  The  progress  towards 
a  more  settled  order  of  society  is  seen  in  the  gradual  appear- 
ance of  towns  in  countries  where  they  had  previously  been  al- 
most unknown.  One  of  the  most  convincing  proofs  of  the 
salutary  influence  of  the  Crusades  in  promoting  trade  and  the 
development  of  civilization  is  the  fact  that  many  towns  grew 
up  and  obtained  charters  during  the  first  part  of  the  twelfth 
century,  especially  in  Flanders  and  Northern  France.  Their 
growth  was  regarded  with  no  little  apprehension  by  the  ruling 
classes.  The  bishops  found  themselves  threatened  by  the 
turbulent  citizens,  who  multiplied  around  their  cathedrals. 
The  nobles  feared  for  their  feudal  dues;  and  the  kings  sup- 
ported their  nobility  against  the  towns  in  which  their  authority 
was  questioned.  Sometimes  the  town  won  its  privilege  by  an  in- 
surrection, but  as  a  rule  it  was  a  matter  of  money.  The  rapidly 
increasing  wealth  of  the  communities  enabled  them  to  buy  the 
privileges  they  sought  from  lords  and  princes  who  were  sadly 
in  need  of  funds.  Naturally  the  great  cities  of  Europe  sprang 
up  in  the  Mediterranean  countries  where  trade  was  most  ac- 
tive. Genoa,  Pisa,  Venice,  Marseilles,  Barcelona,  and  the 
Sicilian  cities  were  full  of  activity  in  the  darkest  days.  Both 
Provence  and  Languedoc  became  lands  of  towns,  as  well  as 
Lombardy,  the  patriotism  of  whose  cities  helped  Italy  to  throw 
ofF  the  German  yoke.  It  has  been  noticed  that  the  further  a 
province  was  from  the  centre  of  imperial  or  royal  authority 
the  more  its  towns  developed.  This  is  certainly  true  of  Provence 
and  Lombardy,  as  regards  the  Empire,  and  of  Languedoc  in 
France.  The  citizens  could,  without  interference,  develop  their 
own  institutions  in  their  own  way. 

Like  the  feudal  domains,  each  town  tended  to  become 
centred,  with  its  own  customs  and  institutions.  It  has  been 


334  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

maintained  that  these  were  as  a  rule  survivals  of  the  old  mu- 
nicipal government  of  the  Roman  Empire,  or  were  derived 
from  the  free  institutions  of  the  Germanic  ancestors  of  the 
townsfolk.  More  probably,  if  we  reflect  that  an  important  city 
like  London  was  so  utterly  destroyed  that  not  even  the  plan 
of  the  ancient  streets  survived,  the  constitutions  of  the  me- 
dieval cities  were  the  result  of  circumstances.  Except  in 
Southern  Europe  there  were  few  large  towns.  In  the  first 
place  the  town  had  to  be  walled,  and  probably  surrounded  by 
a  moat.  This  prevented  expansion,  and  in  addition  the  citizens 
were  exceedingly  jealous  of  sharing  their  hard  won  privileges 
with  strangers.  Nor  would  it  have  been  possible  with  the  ab- 
sence of  means  of  transport  to  feed  more  than  could  live  on 
the  produce  of  the  land  in  and  around  the  city.  The  inhabitants 
of  most  towns  were  numbered  by  a  very  few  thousands,  and 
even  by  hundreds.  The  data  for  estimating  the  population  of  any 
part  of  medieval  Europe  are,  however,  almost  purely  conjectural. 
Equally  difficult  is  it  in  the  absence  of  evidence  to  recon- 
struct the  picture  of  early  medieval  town  life,  especially  as 
one  city  differed  so  greatly  from  another.  Upon  the  whole, 
however,  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  the  constitution  was 
aristocratic,  that  is  to  say,  the  government  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  richer  burghers,  and  that  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants 
had  small  voice  in  its  affairs,  that  it  was  administered  under  a 
complicated  system  which  endeavoured  to  limit  the  powers  of 
individuals,  that  it  was  divided  by  turbulent  factions,  animated 
by  feuds  one  against  the  other,  and  that  the  authorities  ex- 
ercised a  strict  surveillance  over  the  conduct  of  the  citizens. 
As  a  rule  the  townsfolk  were  no  match  in  the  open  field  against 
the  feudal  barons  and  their  retainers,  though  often  able  to 
defend  their  walls  in  time  of  siege.1  Further,  the  citizens  were 
very  jealous  of  their  rights  and  trade  monopolies,  which,  to 

1  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  his  novels  may  distort  his  facts,  but  scarcely  ever  misrepresents 
the  spirit  of  the  age  he  describes.  The  picture  of  a  medieval  city  in  the  Fair  Maid  of 
Perth  is  singularly  living.  Simon  Glover's  account  of  how  he  manned  the  walls  to  de- 
fend them  against  the  English,  the  attitude  of  Sir  Patrick  Charteris  as  Provost  of  the 
Fair  City,  the  meeting  of  the  burgesses  to  investigate  a  murder,  the  ordeal  by  combat, 
etc.,  give  an  excellent  representation  of  civic  life. 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  335 

do  them  justice,  had  been  usually  secured  by  great  efforts  and 
expense  on  their  part;  and  as  far  as  possible  excluded  strangers 
from  the  community.  Where  towns  grew  up  under  the  shadow 
of  a  great  Abbey,  or  where  students  crowded  into  them,  and 
formed  a  University,  there  was  generally  a  standing  feud  be- 
tween the  monks  or  scholars  and  the  inhabitants.  The  Bishop 
was  also  frequently  at  variance  with  the  citizens,  as  the  in- 
habitants of  a  cathedral  city  were  styled,  those  of  other  towns 
being  known  as  burgesses. 

City  life  can,  however,  best  be  illustrated  by  taking  con- 
crete examples,  of  which  Rome  must  necessarily  have  first 
place.  It  is  in  no  way  typical,  owing  to  the  exceptional  circum- 
stances of  its  history;  but  it  has  occupied  so  much  of  our  at- 
tention that  it  is  advisable  to  attempt  to  give  some  account 
of  it  during  the  period  covered  in  these  pages.  The  immense 
area  enclosed  within  the  walls  of  Aurelian  was  scantily  peopled. 
In  her  palmiest  days,  when  Rome  was  mistress  of  the  world, 
the  population  has  been  estimated  as  far  exceeding  a  million; 
but  it  is  possible  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  rarely  reached  a 
total  of  thirty  thousand.  Consequently  we  must  picture  to 
ourselves  a  vast  mass  of  ancient  masonry,  partly  in  ruins,  and 
much  deliberately  converted  to  other  uses,  scantily  inhabited 
by  priests,  barons  at  feud  one  with  another,  and  an  idle  and 
degraded  proletariat.  To  such  a  condition  had  Rome  been  re- 
duced by  the  constant  revolutions  and  disturbances  since  the 
days  of  Gregory  VII.  The  history  of  the  period  has  shown  how 
rarely  a  pope  was  to  live  for  even  a  few  consecutive  years  in 
the  City;  and  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  for  two 
centuries  he  was,  as  a  rule,  to  be  found  anywhere  but  in 
Rome,  which  never  recovered  from  the  sack  of  Robert  Guiscard 
and  his  Normans  in  1084.  The  insignificance  of  the  power  of  the 
Romans  is  seen  in  the  rivalry  between  their  city  and  Tusculum 
in  the  twelfth  century,  which  takes  one  back  to  memories  of 
the  early  days  of  the  ancient  Republic.  In  such  a  city  there 
was  little  intellectual  or  commercial  activity,  and  we  must 
look  elsewhere  for  indications  of  the  progress  of  the  civic  life 
of  the  age. 


336  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Florence  was  a  comparatively  new  city;  and  its  history  is 
interesting  as  showing  how  an  Italian  commonwealth  emerged 
from  feudal  subjection  to  a  position  of  independence.  Its  great- 
ness dates  from  the  days  of  Matilda  of  Tuscany  (d.  1115), 
under  whom  a  Council  of  good  men  (boni  homines)  admin- 
istered its  affairs,  and  at  her  death  did  so  in  the  name  of  the 
people.  For  a  long  time  there  was  war  in  the  city  between 
the  burgesses  and  the  noble  families  {delle  torre,  because  they 
owned  the  houses  with  towers);  but  in  the  end  the  popular 
party  prevailed,  and  the  government  was  vested  in  the  mem- 
bers of  the  trade  guilds  (arti).  Of  these  there  were  seven 
greater  (carpenters,  wool-weavers,  skinners,  tanners,  shoe- 
makers, and  farriers),  and  fourteen  lesser  (doctors,  judges, 
notaries-public,  money  changers,  etc.).  To  enjoy  a  public 
office  it  was  necessary  to  belong  to  a  guild;  and  the  nobles  as 
a  rule  joined  that  of  the  wool-workers. 

But  the  great  days  of  Florence  were  to  come,  though  the 
city  had  already  produced  Cimabue,  Giotto,  and  Dante,  the 
last  named  of  whom  it  had  driven  out  and  sentenced  to  be 
burned.  The  interest  for  students  of  this  period  is  that  Dante 
has  described  it  in  its  ancient  simplicity,  and  has  denounced 
its  luxury  in  his  own  day,  when  it  was  already  rising  to 
fame  as  one  of  the  leading  commercial  cities  of  the  world.  This 
was  due  to  the  admirable  constitution  of  its  seven  great  arti. 

Milan  had  already  a  long  and  glorious  history  ecclesias- 
tically, as  well  as  politically.  From  the  days  of  St.  Ambrose 
the  people  had  been  devoted  to  orthodoxy,  which  under  the 
Arian  Lombards  meant  patriotism,  and  rallied  to  the  support 
of  their  archbishops,  to  whom  they  entrusted  wide  powers. 
The  Archbishop  of  Milan  was  the  greatest  prince  of  Lombardy, 
and  two  in  particular  added  much  to  the  fame  of  their  city. 
These  were  Anspert  (868-881),  who  restored  Milan  to  some- 
thing of  its  former  splendour, — for  it  had  never  recovered  from 
the  invasion  of  Attila  in  the  fifth  century, — and  Heribert 
(1018-1045).  Heribert  was  a  warrior  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastic, 
and  first  supported  and  afterwards  opposed  Conrad  the  Salian. 
Not  even  the  papal  anathema  could  shake  the  loyalty  of  his 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  337 

people;  and  by  their  help  the  Archbishop  was  able  to  repel  the 
imperial  forces,  and  force  them  to  raise  the  siege  of  the  city. 
The  invention  of  the  famous  carroccio,  or  car-borne  standard 
of  Milan,  is  due  to  Heribert;  and  this  was  adopted  by  other 
Italian  cities.  Milan  was  in  fact  the  rallying  point  of  Lombard 
patriotism,  which  reached  its  height  when  Frederic  Barba- 
rossa  was  defeated  at  Legnano  in  1176.  Trade  prospered 
among  its  liberty-loving  population,  and  Milan  was  famous 
throughout  the  world  for  its  armour.  Woollen  manufacture  was 
introduced  and  fostered  by  the  religious  Guild  of  the  Humiliati. 

The  three  great  trading  centres  of  Italy,  which  like  the  old 
Greek  cities  had  their  colonies  in  the  Mediterranean,  were 
Pisa,  Genoa  and  Venice.  These  owed  their  wealth  to  commerce 
rather  than  to  craftsmanship.  Pisa  laid  the  foundations  of  its 
fortunes  mainly  by  war  with  the  Saracens;  and  it  enthusias- 
tically supported  the  earlier  Crusades.  The  period  of  its  great- 
ness was  in  the  twelfth  century,  as  is  attested  by  its  three 
famous  buildings:  the  Cathedral,  begun  in  1063  and  finished 
1 1 18;  the  Campanile  (the  Leaning  Tower),  1174;  and  the  Bap- 
tistery, 1 1 52.  The  Pisans  were  at  war  constantly,  first  with 
Florence,  and  later  with  the  Genoese  to  whom  they  ultimately 
yielded  their  commercial  supremacy.  After  Corsica  and  Sar- 
dinia had  been  cleared  of  the  Saracens,  a  great  trade  with  the 
East  began  and  led  to  the  settlement  of  numerous  factories  by 
the  Genoese  and  Venetians  in  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Black  Sea.  Genoa  was,  by  its  position,  naturally  connected  with 
France;  and  Venice  opened  up  an  artery  for  trade  between 
the  Adriatic  and  the  Baltic  leading  to  the  prosperity  of  such 
German  cities  as  Nuremburg  and  Ausburg.  The  development 
of  trading  centres  was  slowly  changing  the  face  of  Europe  and  en- 
abling it  to  emerge  from  medieval  to  modern  conditions  of  life. 

Two  cities,  though  not  so  originally,  were  gradually  be- 
coming the  very  heart  of  two  nations,  capitals  in  the  modern 
sense.  Of  Paris  mention  has  already  been  made;  but  something 
remains  to  be  said  of  London,  less  important  in  our  period,  but 
destined  for  an  even  greater  commercial,  if  not  political  or  in- 
tellectual supremacy. 


338  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

It  has  been  estimated  that  in  the  days  of  the  Plantagenet 
kings  the  city  of  London  contained  from  forty  to  fifty  thousand 
inhabitants,  and  must  therefore  have  been  incomparably  greater 
than  any  other  city  in  the  British  Isles.  Fitz  Stephen,  a  monk  of 
Canterbury,  has  given,  in  his  life  of  his  friend  Thomas  Becket, 
an  enthusiastic  picture  of  the  London  of  his  time.  He  tells  us 
that  it  was  walled  from  the  Tower  on  the   East  to  Mont- 
fichet  and  Baynard's  Castle  on  the  West,  that  is  almost  as  far 
as  Blackfriars  Bridge.  The  seven  gates  were  Aldgate,  Bishops- 
gate,   Cripplegate,   Aldersgate,   Newgate,    Ludgate,    and    the 
Bridge.   About  two  miles  to  the   west  were  the  Abbey  and 
Palace  of  Westminster,  connected  with  the  City  by  the  Strand. 
Each  trade  had  its  quarter,  the  markets  at  Cheapside   (the 
Chepe),  Eastcheap,  Dowgate  and  Billingsgate  were  well  sup- 
plied. The  young  men  amused  themselves  by  hunting  in  the 
forests,  which  reached  almost  to  the  city,  and  abounded  in  game, 
by  leaping,  wrestling  and  playing  ball;  and  in  winter  by  skating 
on  bone  skates  over  Moorfields.  The  noblemen  had  beautiful 
gardens;  and  the  city  seemed  the  best  governed,  most   hos- 
pitable and  cheerful  in  the  world.  Its  only  drawbacks  were 
that  some  fools  drank  too  much,  and   fires  were  frequent,  as 
was  natural  since  little  stone  was  used  in  the  city.  There  were  a 
hundred   and   twenty-six   parish   churches,   and   the   religious 
houses   were   very   numerous,   both   within    and   without   the 
walls.   The   population   was   by    no    means    entirely    native, 
Germans   and   Hansa    Merchants    being    found    everywhere. 
The  names  still  illustrate  the   medieval   city.     Bread,   Milk, 
Fish  Streets  recall  the   ancient  trades.  The  "gates"   are  all 
represented.  "London  Wall"  recalls  the  old  limit  of  the  city 
and  the  Jewry,   the  part  set  apart  for  the  Chosen   People. 
Blackfriars,  Grayfriars,  Crutchedfriars,  Whitefriars,   all  per- 
petuate their  former  occupants:  the  Minories  was  the  home 
of  the  nuns  of  St.  Clara. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  towns  were  engaged  in  mechanical 
trades,  all  of  which  were  elaborately  organized,  as  was  most  of 
the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages.  No  one  could  work  on  his  own 
account:  he  was  subject  to  the  laws  of  his  craft.  The  system 


A   SURVEY  OF   SOCIETY  339 

of  instruction  resembled  that  of  the  schools  of  learning;  and 
no  one  was  allowed  to  exercise  his  trade  or  to  teach  it  unless 
he  had  undergone  systematic  training.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
students  formed  corporations  analogous  to  those  of  the  crafts- 
men. 

The  beginning  of  medieval  industry  was  due  to  the  neces- 
sities of  the  feudal  nobility,  for  whom  their  dependents  plied 
their  trades.  The  technical  name  for  this  species  of  service 
was  ministerium,  hence  the  French  word  metier.  The  freedom  of 
the  operatives,  like  that  of  the  serfs,  was  obtained  by  purchase, 
and  even  then  the  overlord  still  frequently  claimed  his  share 
of  the  profits.  Each  metier,  however,  was  self-governing,  the 
main  object  of  all  being  as  far  as  possible  to  prevent  excessive 
competition  and  an  oversupply  of  labour,  and  to  see  that  no 
individual  became  rich  at  the  expense  of  his  fellows.  The  re- 
sult was  that  progress  towards  personal  liberty  and  initiative 
were  checked,  and  that  all  were  expected  to  prefer  the  interest 
of  their  common  trade  to  their  own. 

Of  course  every  craft  was  purely  mechanical,  and  to  master 
it  a  man  had  to  understand  the  entire  process  from  the  be- 
ginning. It  was  therefore  necessary  to  have  a  long  training 
before  a  man  could  exercise  the  full  mystery  of  his  trade;  nor 
could  anyone  change  the  profession  which  he  had  learned  with 
so  much  difficulty.  To  this  is  due  much  of  the  excellence  of  the 
work  in  the  Middle  Ages;  for  it  was  that  of  experts.1 

The  training  began  with  a  long  apprenticeship,  extending 
over  sometimes  as  much  as  a  dozen  years.  It  was  not  easy  to 
obtain  an  entrance  into  a  craft,  as  the  masters  were  strictly 
limited  as  to  the  number  of  those  they  initiated — seldom  more 
than  three  were  allowed  to  a  single  master.  The  apprentice  was 
practically  the  household  slave  of  his  master,  who  was  bound 
to  maintain  him  and  to  teach  him  his  craft,  and  even  to  pay 
him  a  wage  if  he  married;  at  the  same  time  he  had  the  disposal 
of  his  services,  and  the  right  to  arrest  him  if  he  escaped  from 

1  Every  educated  man  in  the  Middle  Ages  passed  through  three  stages.  If  he  were 
a  scholar  he  was  (1)  a  student,  (2)  bachelor,  (3)  master.  If  a  noble  (1)  page,  (2)  squire, 
(3)  knight.  If  a  mechanic  (1)  apprentice,  (2)  craftsman,  (3)  master. 


34-0  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

his  duties.  If  the  business  was  sold,  the  apprentices  might  go 
with  it  to  the  purchaser.  On  serving  his  time,  the  apprentice 
became  a  journeyman  or  valet  (varlet).  He  could  then  offer  his 
services,  but  under  severe  restrictions.  For  example,  he  might 
not  work  for  a  private  person,  but  only  under  a  master 
of  his  craft.  At  stated  times  he  had  to  go  with  his  fellows  to 
the  crossways  and  be  hired.  His  hours  of  work  were  long, 
usually  from  sunrise  to  sunset — nearly  sixteen  hours  in  summer. 
The  severity  of  his  labour  was,  however,  relaxed  by  the  church 
holidays  and  Sundays,  which  left  about  a  hundred  days  in  the 
year  free.  A  successful  craftsman  might  set  up  as  a  master; 
but,  even  then,  he  was  not  free  to  do  as  he  pleased.  He  had  to 
satisfy  the  rulers  of  his  guild  by  his  mechanical  skill  that  he 
was  qualified  for  his  position.  He  was  bound  to  conform  to  all 
the  rules  of  his  trade;  and  was  rarely  allowed  the  right  of  at- 
tracting custom  to  himself  to  the  detriment  of  other  masters. 
The  industry  of  the  medieval  town  was  domestic,  and  plied  on 
the  premises  where  the  masters  lived.  Inspectors  looked  after 
the  work  to  see  that  it  was  fairly  and  properly  performed. 
There  was  no  distinction  between  employer  and  employee,  as 
master  and  men  worked  together. 

The  trades  were  represented  by  guilds  which  were  founded 
on  a  religious  basis.  As  in  ancient  Rome  every  craft  had  its 
god,  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  had  its  patron  saint.  On  his  day  the 
guild  assembled  to  hear  Mass,  and  frequently  dined  together. 
It  was  the  duty  of  every  member  to  attend  the  obsequies  of  a 
colleague,  and  he  was  expected  to  help  him  or  his  widow  and 
children  in  time  of  need,  charity  and  mutual  assistance  being 
the  essentials  of  guild  fellowship. 

Like  so  many  in  the  Middle  Ages,  this  picture  of  life  is 
attractive  on  the  surface,  but  does  not  bear  close  investiga- 
tion. The  crowded  town  with  its  narrow  streets,  its  unsanitary 
conditions,  was  not  an  ideal  dwelling  place.  Nor  did  laws,  how- 
ever fair  on  paper,  make  life  agreeable.  In  the  thirteenth 
century,  as  at  all  times,  people  amassed  money,  often  by  thinly 
disguised  usury;  and  we  hear  of  a  man  and  wife,  who  having 
come  almost  as  beggars,  in  a  few  years  managed  to  own  most 


A   SURVEY  OF   SOCIETY  34 1 

of  a  town.  The  narrow  life  engendered  endless  jealousies,  the 
towns  were  rent  by  factions,  and  each  city  felt  a  passionate 
rivalry,  often  resulting  in  bloodshed,  towards  its  nearest 
neighbour.  The  dread  of  change,  moreover,  fettered  enterprise, 
and  freedom  was  practically  non-existent  in  the  communities 
of  workers.  The  perils  of  civic  life  alone  seem  to  have  relieved 
an  almost  intolerable  monotony. 

The  development  of  all  industry  depends  on  commerce,  and 
from  the  closing  years  of  the  eleventh  century  men  were  ceasing 
to  work  for  the  needs  of  their  locality,  and  sought  markets 
for  their  commodities.  The  wandering  of  the  nations  was  suc- 
ceeded by  that  of  the  merchants.  The  difficulties  of  travel 
were  enormous;  bad  roads,  few  bridges,  heavy  tolls,  baronial 
exactions,  constant  and  organized  brigandage,  made  the  life 
of  the  trader  dangerous  and  well-nigh  intolerable.  For  all  this 
trade  was  active  and  developed  rapidly.  In  this  development 
the  Church  played  an  honourable  part.  Fraternities  were 
formed  to  protect  merchants  and  pilgrims,  to  repair  and  keep 
bridges  in  order,  to  provide  hostels  for  travellers.  The  few 
lighthouses  were  kept  by  the  Church,  which  sought  to  lessen 
the  great  dangers  of  navigation;  and  to  this  day  in  England 
lighthouses  are  controlled  by  the  Trinity  House,  whose  name 
attests  its  ecclesiastical  origin.  The  fact  that  the  Probate, 
Divorce  and  Admiralty  court  is  a  division  of  the  judicature, 
is  a  reminder  that  at  one  time  wills,  marriages  and  navigation 
were  part  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Church. 

But  credit  was  even  then  essential  to  business;  and  the 
question  of  usury,  or  interest  for  money  borrowed  for  trade, 
was  a  pressing  one,  and  opinion  as  well  as  religion  shrank  from 
the  idea  that  money  should  make  money.  To  profit  by  a  neigh- 
bour's poverty  seemed  repugnant  to  every  right-minded  man; 
and  the  Church  condemned  the  practice  of  getting  gain  by 
loans  which  ought  to  be  acts  of  charity.1  This  might  befit  a  sim- 

1  Money  lending  led  to  the  enslavement  of  freemen.  This  is  true  of  the  Roman 
republic  when  the  poorer  citizens  became  virtually  the  slaves  of  the  rich.  The  Hebrew 
bondman,  who  could  not  by  the  law  be  held  as  a  slave  for  more  than  seven  years,  was 
probably  a  debtor. 


342  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

pie  community,  but  once  there  came  into  being  an  extension  of 
commerce  and  manufacture,  and  governments  wanted  to  an- 
ticipate their  revenues  for  any  special  reason,  loans  became  no 
longer  charitable  but  commercial,  and  unless  men  could  be 
found  who  could  profit  by  lending  their  money,  none  would  be 
forthcoming.  But  the  Church  had  forbidden  Christians  to  take 
usury,  and  its  decrees  were  irrevocable.  It  was,  however,  found 
to  be  necessary  that  some  sort  of  banking  should  exist;  and  the 
Jew  was  the  only  one  who  could  undertake  the  business  with- 
out incurring  the  ban  of  the  Church.  The  Jews  were  therefore 
tolerated  as  usurers  and  protected  by  the  kings  and  princes, 
lay  and  clerical,  who  profited  largely  by  their  exactions,  as 
without  incurring  the  guilt  of  usury,  they  were  able  to  derive 
all  the  advantage  of  its  practice.  In  England  the  Jew  was 
legally  the  King's  "chattel,"  absolutely  at  his  disposal.  Never- 
theless he  was  too  useful  to  be  seriously  oppressed,  though  re- 
garded by  the  people  with  the  utmost  abhorrence  and  dread. 
On  the  whole  it  is  open  to  doubt  whether  the  Jews  were  much 
worse  off  than  other  members  of  the  feudal  society.  All  were 
equally  liable  to  arbitrary  treatment  at  the  hands  of  their 
superiors,  and  even  the  clergy  were  not  as  individuals  free 
from  danger  of  oppression,  or  outbreaks  of  popular  fury.  The 
Jew  was  allowed  to  exercise  his  religion,  and  to  have  his  syna- 
gogue, and  his  sufferings  were  often  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
more  intelligent  and  civilized  than  the  mass  of  the  people, 
and,  therefore,  more  capable  of  feeling. 

But  money  lending  was  too  profitable  to  be  monopolised 
by  the  hated  Jew,  and  the  shrewd  Italians  found  a  means  of 
indulging  in  the  practice  without  breaking  the  Canon  Law. 
True  they  might  not  take  usury,  but  the  Roman  law  allowed 
them  to  exact  a  penalty  if  the  loan  was  not  repaid  at  the  date 
when  the  money  was  payable,  as  to  withhold  it  was  to  wrong 
the  lender.  A  penalty  clause  was  therefore  added  to  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  every  loan,  usually  taking  the  form  of  a  heavy 
increase  of  the  obligation,  which  virtually  amounted  to  a 
usurious  interest.  Shylock's  agreement  with  Antonio  in  the 
Merchant  of  Venice  was  of  this  character.  The  money  was  to 


A   SURVEY  OF   SOCIETY  343 

be  paid  on  a  certain  day,  and  nothing  was  due  for  its  use. 
But,  if  not  forthcoming,  Antonio  placed  his  person  at  the 
mercy  of  his  creditor.  In  this  way  the  Lombards,  Genoese, 
and  Venetians  were  enabled  to  become  the  bankers  of  Europe 
in  rivalry  with  the  Jews;  and  their  methods  were  at  least  as 
rigorous  as  those  of  the  Chosen  People;  nor  could  the  Church 
raise  any  technical  objection.  Nevertheless  the  morality  of  the 
age  was  strongly  opposed  to  anything  savouring  of  using 
money  to  make  money,  and  the  taking  of  usury  was  regarded 
as  not  less  heinous  than  heresy. 

The  Church  was  originally  justified  in  condemning  usury 
or  taking  of  interest  —  for  usura  means  no  more  than  interest, 
being  derived  from  usus,  and  signifying  the  payment  for 
the  use  of  a  loan.  In  primitive  society  the  borrower  was 
generally  a  man  in  desperate  need  of  money  and  it  was  con- 
sidered a  charity  to  lend  to  him.  The  Bible  and  the  Roman  law 
were  in  full  agreement  that  using  a  man's  dire  necessity  as  a 
means  of  making  a  profit  out  of  it  was  despicable,  and  Cato, 
when  asked  what  he  thought  of  usury,  would  not  answer 
directly,  but  asked  his  interrogator  his  opinion  of  murder. 
But  to  charge  a  price,  proportionate  to  the  security  offered,  to 
a  man  that  he  may  trade  with  the  money,  is  only  reasonable; 
and  this  the  wiser  legislators  and  teachers  of  the  Church  were 
ready  to  admit.  Alexander  III  allowed  money  to  be  invested 
in  the  hands  of  merchants,  who  traded  with  it  for  the  benefit 
of  minors,  and  in  the  next  century  his  action  was  endorsed  by 
Aquinas. 

But  the  whole  method  of  the  ecclesiastical,  and,  for  that 
matter,  almost  all  legislation  with  regard  to  usury  has  defeated 
its  object.  That  money  lending,  in  the  usual  acceptation  of 
the  term,  is  an  evil  is  unquestionable,  but  in  legislating  against 
it  there  is  a  danger  that  the  name  alone  is  suppressed,  and 
the  thing  flourishes  under  other  designations.  The  laws  of  the 
Church  were  frequently  too  ideal  for  the  ethics  of  the  age,  and 
resulted  in  the  necessity  for  a  casuistry,  often  demoralising  to 
the  conscience,  in  order  to  provide  that  they  might  at  the  same 
time  be  outwardly  observed,  and  practically  evaded. 


344  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  world  of  the  eleventh  century  and  onwards  was  steadily 
enlarging  its  borders,  and  for  this  trade  was  largely  responsible. 
The  limits  of  the  Roman  Empire  had  long  been  passed,  and 
commerce  had  penetrated  into  regions  unknown  to  the  ancient 
world.  Scandinavia  and  Russia  sent  their  products  to  the  mar- 
kets of  Europe;  and  difference  of  religion,  which  caused  inces- 
sant war,  could  not  hinder  the  volume  of  commodities  passing 
between  East  and  West  from  increasing.  The  Mediterranean 
was  naturally  the  great  trade  route  of  the  world,  the  Baltic 
was  becoming  the  scene  of  a  busy  commerce,  as  was  also  the 
English  Channel.  Commercial  cities  were  also  rising  along  the 
land  route  from  the  Adriatic  to  the  shores  of  the  Baltic.  De- 
fective roads,  the  dangers  of  navigation,  robbers  on  land,  and 
piracy  on  the  sea,  were  powerless  to  check  the  enterprise  of 
the  merchant. 

One  characteristic  of  our  period  was  the  way  in  which  the 
trading  cities  combined  together  to  secure  monopolies.  These 
associations  were  known  as  hansasy  or  guilds.  The  best  known 
is  the  Hanseatic  League  of  northern  towns,  which  was  destined 
to  play  a  great  part,  but  there  were  other  hansas  like  that  of 
"the  seventeen  cities"  in  Champagne,  a  confederation  so 
named  from  the  original  members,  but  which  eventually 
embraced  some  sixty  places.  The  Flanders  league  was  known 
as  the  Hansa  of  London  and  traded  with  England  and  Scotland. 
Its  headquarters  were  Bruges  and  it  had  a  chief  or  "count" 
who  was  obliged  to  be  a  native  of  that  city,  and  a  deputy  who 
was  styled  a  schildrag  and  was  chosen  from  Ypres.  The  hansas 
had  their  agents  in  every  city,  and  were  particularly  active 
as  purchasers  of  goods  in  the  great  fairs  which  were  held 
throughout  Europe,  from  Novgorod  in  Russia  to  Stourbridge 
near  Cambridge  in  England.  The  right  to  hold  a  fair  even  on 
a  small  scale  was  a  great  privilege,  and  was  sometimes  granted 
to  a  religious  house.  But  the  great  fairs,  which  continued  down 
to  later  times,  were  virtually  temporary  cities,  opened  with 
great  pomp,  regulated  by  strict  laws,  with  streets  of  booths 
assigned  to  the  different  commodities.  The  fairs  served  the 
same  purpose  of  drawing  people  together  as  the  pilgrimages; 


A  SURVEY  OF   SOCIETY  345 

for  commerce  was  as  cosmopolitan  as  the  Church  itself.  It  was 
also  the  cause  of  settlements  of  foreigners  in  different  countries, 
both  merchants  and  craftsmen.  Thus  Flemings  came  over  to 
England;  and  in  London  Italian  bankers  and  hansa  merchants 
had  their  establishments.  Lombard  Street,  and  the  surname 
Hansard,  perpetuate  the  memory  of  this  at  the  present  day. 

The  art  which  reached  its  highest  development  during  the 
period  was  architecture.  Here,  and  in  every  other  artistic  pro- 
duction, is  shown  the  best  side  of  medieval  education  in  its 
success  in  turning  out  trained  professional  men,  all  of  whom  had 
gone  through  the  drudgery  of  the  business  they  had  learned. 
Whether  a  man  was  a  knight  leading  his  soldiers  to  battle,  a 
theologian  disputing  in  the  school,  a  lawyer  or  a  tradesman  with 
his  apprentices  and  valets,  everyone  had  learned  the  rudi- 
ments of  his  profession,  and  had  begun  at  the  bottom  and 
worked  upwards.  Whatever  may  have  been  their  shortcomings, 
the  educated  classes  were  necessarily  experts,  and  not  amateurs. 
This  accounts  for  their  excellence  in  craftsmanship  and  for  the 
astonishing  results  achieved  in  an  age  in  which  Europe  was 
only  just  emerging  from  barbarism. 

The  beauty  of  a  great  cathedral  consists  not  only  in  the 
magnitude  of  the  conception  and  the  daring  arrangement  of 
arch  and  column,  but  in  the  minutest  detail.  The  cutting  of  a 
leaf  in  stone,  some  grotesque  figure  hidden  below  a  fauldstool 
may  be  a  veritable  work  of  art,  proving  that  the  man  who  did 
it  had  learned  his  trade  so  thoroughly  that  it  had  become  a 
second  nature  to  him  to  turn  out  perfect  work,  and  what  is 
true  of  the  mason  or  carpenter  is  equally  so  of  the  skilful 
scribe  or  illuminator,  the  worker  in  metals,  the  goldsmith,  or 
the  weaver.  The  concentration  of  life  as  we  have  described  it 
had  the  merit  of  making  men  proficient  in  their  craft,  and  of 
instilling  in  many  the  ambition  to  excel,  each  in  his  own  re- 
stricted department.  The  life  was  at  least  productive. 

And  productivity  in  art  was  encouraged  by  the  Church, 
which  by  its  ceremonial  added  greatly  to  the  picturesqueness  of 
life.  The  meanest  workman  was  taught  to  contemplate  ob- 
jects of  beauty,  at  any  rate  in  his  religion,  and  his  imagination 


346  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

was  stimulated  by  the  legends  and  superstitions  of  the  age. 
Not  only  so,  but  he  escaped  the  confinement  of  a  factory, 
and  worked  under  a  master  who  understood  as  a  fellow  labourer 
what  was  being  done,  so  that  the  human  element  was  intro- 
duced into  the  toil  of  the  day,  and  fostered  originality. 

Now  we  come  to  the  most  difficult  of  all  questions.  What 
was  actually  the  religion  of  the  people  above  described? 
Certainly  the  questions  eagerly  debated  in  the  schools  were 
of  no  interest  to  them.  Few  had  any  conception  of  the  mystical 
piety  of  a  St.  Bernard,  still  less  of  the  philosophic  theories  of 
an  Abelard,  or  the  logical  methods  of  an  Aquinas.  The  nobles, 
the  clergy,  the  scholars,  the  merchants  and  even  the  humblest 
craftsmen  formed  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  population. 
Till  the  revival  in  the  eleventh  century,  the  vast  majority 
were  peasants,  living  on  the  verge  of  starvation,  in  a  condition 
of  almost  primitive  savagery,  ignorant  of  all  but  the  simplest 
arts  of  life.  They  were,  however,  at  least  nominally,  Christians; 
but  we  are  often  left  with  little  more  than  conjecture  as  to 
what  the  Faith  meant  to  them. 

They  were  taught  to  believe  in  One  God,  to  them  the 
hardest  of  all  doctrines  to  understand.  In  a  feudal  society,  for 
instance,  what  did  "the  Emperor"  mean  to  a  peasant  if  he  had 
ever  heard  of  him?  He  was  a  great  lord,  living  many  days' 
journey  away,  whom  he  was  never  likely  to  see.  He  was  the 
superior  of  the  Count,  or  Duke,  or  Bishop,  who  governed  the 
country  of  the  poor  man,  great  personages,  whom  he  might 
have  seen  at  a  distance  as  they  passed  by  with  a  train  of  attend- 
ants. These  in  turn  were  lords  of  the  baron  on  whose  lands  the 
peasant  lived,  but  whose  face  he  seldom  saw.  The  powers  that 
be  were  to  that  poor  man  those  with  whom  he  was  in  con- 
stant contact,  the  bailiff,  the  miller,  the  seneschal,  the  officials 
of  the  estate,  who  if  they  oppressed  him  at  least  could  hear  his 
complaints.  God  the  Father  must  have  seemed  much  as  the 
Emperor,  an  inaccessible  Being  throned  in  majesty,  doubtless 
infinitely  good,  but  at  the  same  time  infinitely  remote.  God  the 
Son  was  kind  and  gentle,  for  he  had  died  on  the  Cross;  but  He 
too  was  far  away,  and  besides  he  was  coming  in  tremendous 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  347 

majesty  to  judge  the  world.  Even  the  great  saints  could  hardly 
be  expected  to  trouble  about  lowly  people,  though  the  Blessed 
Virgin  was  known  to  be  very  tender-hearted  to  the  poor.  What 
they  needed  was  some  familiar  saint,  who  had  lived  among 
them  and  knew  about  them,  some  good  bishop  or  priest,  or 
pious  virgin,  in  whose  honour  the  well  that  healed  their  sick- 
nesses had  sprung  forth.  Thus  everywhere  there  were  shrines 
of  local  saints  who,  theologically,  were  but  men  and  women 
worthy  of  reverence,  and  practically  replaced  the  deities  of 
the  ancestors  of  the  village.  Under  the  name  of  Christianity 
was  a  very  thinly  veiled  polytheism. 

But  even  the  saints  were  invisible,  and  what  was  needed 
to  reassure  men  terrified  by  the  unseen  powers  of  evil,  was 
something  tangible.  This  was  supplied  by  the  innumerable 
relics  of  every  person  in  the  Bible,  and  in  the  calendar  of  Saints. 
These  were  in  every  church,  and  were  displayed  on  all  important 
occasions.  Their  power  was  immense;  they  stilled  the  storm, 
stayed  the  thunderbolt,  sent  the  needed  rain  and  expelled  pes- 
tilence. Those  fortunate  enough  to  possess  them  were  safe  on 
their  journeys,  and  had  a  powerful  aid  in  the  hour  of  death. 
Even  if  stolen,  a  relic  assisted  the  man  who  possessed  it  by  its 
inherent  power.  The  Christianity  of  the  ignorant  was  in  many 
places  one  of  talismans. 

The  clergy  who  instructed  the  people  must  not  be  compared 
with  those  of  whom  we  have  spoken  in  the  learned  schools  of 
Chartres  or  Paris.  In  the  ninth  century  King  Alfred  had  said 
that  in  his  dominions  there  was  hardly  a  single  priest  who 
could  translate  the  services  he  recited;  and  four  centuries 
later  Eudes  Rigaud,  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  found  many  of  his 
priests  equally  ignorant.  He  examined  candidates  for  benefices 
in  the  simplest  Latin;  and  we  find  one  translating  Ade  vero  non 
inveniebatur  adjutor  similis  eius,  "But  Adam  could  not  find  a 
helper  like  him."  Pateo,  one  of  them  said,  meant  "to  open," 
or  "to  suffer."  Another  said  that  in  the  words  Omnia  autem 
aperta,  the  last  was  a  substantive.  These  mistakes  may  not 
seem  so  serious  to  some  people  today;  but  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  Latin  was  the  only  language  learned,   and  that 


348  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

without  it  no  learning  was  accessible,  and  further  that  the 
priest  used  it  every  time  he  said  Mass,  the  ignorance  of  some 
of  the  clergy  in  a  civilized  part  of  France  in  the  days  of  the 
great  scholastics  must  have  been  considerable. 

The  service  of  the  Church  meant  but  little  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  laity.  It  was  a  mystery  which  the  priest  conducted; 
and  their  duty  was  to  be  present  and  say  the  few  simple  prayers 
they  had  been  taught  to  repeat  without  reference  to  what  was 
going  on.  The  Mass  was  the  service  they  attended;  and,  even 
if  it  had  been  in  their  native  languages,  they  would  have  un- 
derstood but  little.  A  perusal  of  a  few  specimens  of  the  Apostles' 
Creed  in  the  vernaculars  of  Western  Europe  will  show  the 
varieties  of  dialects  of  the  same  language.  Primers  and  guides 
to  the  Mass,  etc.,  for  the  laity  belong  to  a  later  age. 

The  superstitions  of  the  age  were  at  times  harmless,  but 
often  had  a  demoralising  influence.  It  is  related  of  King  Robert 
of  France,  as  a  proof  of  his  goodness,  that,  to  avoid  leading  his 
nobles  into  the  sin  of  perjury,  he  had  a  casket  made  in  which, 
instead  of  the  relics  they  supposed  to  be  there,  were  harmless 
stones  or  other  articles.  It  was  the  relic,  not  the  mind  of  the 
false  swearer,  which  made  the  sin  so  heinous.  Even  though  he 
believed  the  relic  was  there,  the  perjurer  escaped  danger  if  it 
was  absent.  And  even  if  we  make  every  allowance  for  the  ut- 
terances   of    impassioned    preachers    and    fervent    moralists, 
morality  in  every  class  was  at  a  low  ebb.  It  has  been  seen  how 
little  real  courtesy  lay  below  the  veneer  of  chivalry,  and  what 
base  motives  actuated  many  of  the  crusaders.  But  nowhere  do 
worse  scandals  appear  than  among  the  clergy;  possibly  be- 
cause more  record  was  kept  of  their  doings.  The  sin  of  which 
most  is  made  is,  naturally,  incontinency.  This  is  only  to  be 
expected  when  clerical  marriage  is  absolutely  forbidden;  but, 
like  so  many  other  things,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  law  was  one 
thing  and  practice   another.  This  was  especially  true  of  all 
marriage,  which  according  to  Canon  Law  was  regulated  by 
innumerable  restrictions.   Divorce  was  in  theory  impossible: 
Christian  marriage  being  an  indissoluble  contract.  But  in  the 
upper  classes  an  heiress  represented  a  property  rather  than  an 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  349 

individual  woman;  and  a  lady  constantly  changed  hands,  and 
passed  from  husband  to  husband  on  the  most  frivolous  pre- 
texts. It  was  the  same  with  clerical  marriage.  It  was  notorious 
that  the  great  majority  of  the  priests  lived  openly  with  some 
woman  known  as  "a  niece,"  "a  friend,"  or  in  Latin,  afocaria, 
or  keeper  of  his  hearth.  This  has  been  represented  as  a  sort 
of  honourable,  if  clandestine  matrimony.  It  was,  in  many 
places,  nothing  of  the  kind;  as,  not  merely  fervid  preachers, 
but  the  sober  registers  of  episcopal  visitations  abundantly 
testify,  notably  that  of  Archbishop  Eudes  of  Rouen.  The  results 
of  his  visitation  are  enough  finally  to  dispel  any  idea  that  there 
were  many  concubinary  priests  in  the  diocese  living  honestly 
with  the  wives  of  their  youth.  The  condition  of  things  is  in- 
describable, and  the  whole  subject  is  so  unsavoury,  that  it  had 
best  be  passed  over  in  silence.  What,  however,  is  so  amazing  is 
that  the  most  trifling  penalties  were  inflicted  by  Eudes,  a  man 
of  stern  justice,  for  offences  which  would  now  in  anyone,  let 
alone  a  clergyman,  merit  the  severest  penalties,  which  law  or 
public  opinion  could  inflict.  Yet  so  bad  was  the  moral  tone  of 
the  vast  mass  of  the  parochial  clergy,  that  some  heinous 
offenders  were  not  even  deprived  of  their  benefices.  Bad  as  they 
were,  there  was  no  one  better  to  replace  them. 

One  would  naturally  expect  that  the  mystery  of  the  sacri- 
fice of  the  altar  would  have  encouraged  a  dread  of  the  con- 
secrated elements,  which  we  might  condemn  as  superstitious, 
though  respecting  the  reverence  with  which  they  were  regarded. 
It  might  have  been  supposed  that  as  the  miracle  of  the  change 
of  the  bread  and  wine  was  believed  to  be  the  result  of  the 
priest's  pronouncing  exactly  the  formula  of  consecration,  the 
most  scrupulous  care  would  be  taken  in  using  it  correctly. 
Further,  as  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  was  accepted,  not 
scholastically  or  philosophically,  but  in  the  most  material  sense, 
it  might  be  expected  that  the  Sacred  Host,  the  Bread  which 
had  become  the  Body  of  the  Saviour,  which  at  times  was  be- 
lieved to  have  proved  this  by  actually  bleeding,  and  possessed 
magical  powers,  as  was  evidenced  by  those  who  presumed  to 
receive  it  in  attestation  of  a  false  oath,  would  be  honoured. 


350  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Moreover,  those  who  adored  it  worshipped  Christ  the  Saviour 
of  the  world,  in  the  most  literal  sense  present  in  their  midst. 
Such  beliefs  one  might  reasonably  assume  would  guard  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord  from  profanation. 

But  one  is  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  whatever  may 
have  been  the  popular  superstition  about  the  Eucharist,  one 
of  the  gravest  charges  against  the  clergy  was  the  revolting 
irreverence  they  displayed  towards  the  mystery  of  the  Altar, 
and  towards  the  Host  itself.  The  truth  is  superstition  can  never 
produce  reverence;  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  was  too 
spiritual  to  appeal  to  the  gross  materialism  of  a  degraded 
priesthood.  They  are  charged  with  not  attempting  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  Canon  of  the  Mass,  the  prayer  by 
which  the  Mystery  was  wrought,  and  of  pronouncing  the 
solemn  words  incorrectly,  owing  to  their  careless  irreverence. 
The  cloths  used  at  the  altar  were  often  in  a  filthy  state,  the 
Host  was  allowed  to  get  mouldy  and  fly-blown,  and  was  often 
put  in  most  unseemly  places.  The  churches  were  frequently 
unswept  and  dirty,  and  were  used  at  times  as  barns  or  store- 
houses. In  a  word  Bishop  Butler's  famous  charge  to  the 
clergy  of  Durham,  where  he  complained  of  the  scandalous 
neglect  and  disrepair  of  the  churches  of  the  diocese  in  1751, 
might  have  been  used  almost  word  for  word  by  a  bishop  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  applied  to  many  of  his  parishes  with 
equal  truth. 

Drunkenness  was  very  prevalent,  the  clergy  are  charged 
with  haunting  taverns,  and  filling  themselves  with  drink  "  up  to 
their  throats,"  often  with  playing  dice.  The  practice  of  Simony 
was  universal,  and  ecclesiastical  legislation  was  powerless  to 
check  it.  Everything  was  bought  and  sold,  even  baptism  and 
extreme  unction.  Not  infrequently  the  parish  priest  was  the 
one  wealthy  man  in  the  village,  and  if  so,  he  almost  certainly 
was  the  money-lender  whose  exactions  ground  the  wretched 
inhabitants  without  remorse.  The  abuse  of  the  confessional 
was  one  of  the  worst  scandals  of  the  time. 

Such  then  are  evidences  of  the  fearful  disorders,  to 
which  the  preachers,  the  moralists,  canons  of  the  Councils, 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  35 1 

and  the  bishops'  registers  bear  abundant  witness.  It  is  often 
maintained  that  these  ought  to  be  ignored,  and  passed  over 
in  discreet  silence;  but  in  order  to  understand  the  mind  of 
the  Middle  Ages  it  is  necessary  to  emphasize  them.  It  does  not 
help  the  cause  of  Catholicism  to  pretend  that  they  did  not 
exist,  nor  of  Protestantism  to  gloat  over  these  unsavoury  de- 
tails. On  the  contrary,  they  alone  explain  the  attitude  of  the 
rulers  and  even  the  saints  of  the  Church  to  their  age.  Men  like 
St.  Bernard  and  St.  Norbert  have  been  held  up  to  scorn  as 
bigoted  enthusiasts,  as  encouraging  absurd  asceticism,  or 
fantastic  superstition.  They  are  judged  by  their  traducers  as 
though  they  had  lived  in  the  Victorian  age  in  England,  whereas 
they  lived  amid  nominal  Christians,  whose  morality  was  often 
worse  than  pagan.  No  wonder  they  opposed  to  the  vices  of  their 
age  the  example  of  the  sternest  self-discipline  of  the  cloister. 
Is  the  intemperate  language  of  St.  Peter  Damiani  to  be  harshly 
condemned,  when  he  knew  what  clerical  incontinency  actually 
was  in  his  day? 

Moreover,  in  many  instances  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  the 
best  clergy  of  the  time,  if  they  encouraged  certain  things  now 
rightly  condemned,  were  also  fighting  hard  against  a  baser 
superstition.  In  the  ninth  century  St.  Agobard  of  Lyons  had 
condemned  the  unspiritualizing  tendency  to  true  piety  of 
trusting  in  all  adventitious  aids,  images,  relics,  etc.  And  time 
after  time  the  bishops  and  the  Inquisition  are  found  repressing 
excesses  of  false  devotion,  for  example,  the  widespread  cultus 
of  a  woman  who  professed  to  be  the  incarnation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  of  many  new  wonder-working  bodies  of  persons, 
who  proved  on  enquiry  to  be  anything  but  saints. 

With  this  terrible  condition  of  affairs  in  the  Church  it  is 
not  surprising  that  heresy  prevailed  so  extensively  in  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  As  has  been  shown,  it  was  at 
its  worst  in  the  towns,  the  greater  civilization  of  which  made  the 
people  more  alive  to  the  corruption  of  the  time.  The  secret  of 
the  success  of  the  false  teachers  lay  in  their  austerity  of  life, 
which  was  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  practice  of  many  of  the 
clergy.  Nor  had  the  vast  majority  of  either  clergy  or  people 


352  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  ability  to  judge  what  was  heresy.  They  were  ready  to  be- 
lieve anything;  and,  given  real  piety,  ostentatious  goodness, 
or  even  blatant  assertion  of  miraculous  power,  there  was 
nothing  that  would  not  be  readily  accepted.  Side  by  side  with 
this  heresy  and  superstition,  there  was  no  little  scepticism,  and 
positive  unbelief.  Men  like  the  Emperor  Frederic  II  were 
believed  to  scoff  openly  at  the  Christian  religion. 

There  was,  however,  much  genuine  piety;  and  in  every  age 
throughout  the  period  here  treated  of  were  men  of  exceptional 
goodness  and  ability.  But  these  were  as  exceptional  then  as  in 
all  stages  of  human  history;  nor  did  they  generally  escape  mis- 
representation or  even  actual  persecution.  But  by  the  end  of 
the  thirteenth  century  the  monopoly  the  clergy  had  enjoyed 
of  the  learning  and  wealth  of  Europe  had  certainly  not  con- 
tributed to  the  usefulness  of  their  order,  nor  to  the  benefit  of 
society.  This  must  be  understood  in  view  of  the  failure  of  the 
medieval  conception  of  a  theocracy  on  earth,  directed  by  the 
Pope. 

AUTHORITIES 

Lavisse  and  Rambaud,  in  their  Histoire  Generate,  Vol.  II,  have  four  in- 
valuable chapters:  I,  on  the  Feudal  system  (C.  Seignobos);  VIII  and  IX,  on 
the  Towns  and  Commerce  (A.  Giry  and  A.  Reville);  and  X,  on  Western 
Civilization  (C.  V.  Langlois);  all  have  good  bibliographies.  A.  Luchaire, 
Social  France  at  the  Time  of  Philip  Augustus,  E.  T.,  is  readable  and  especially 
interesting  from  the  illustrations  from  the  popular  poems  and  tales  of  the  age. 
See  also  three  books  by  G.  G.  Coulton,  Medieval  Garner  (1910);  Medieval 
Studies,  First  Series,  second  revised  edition  with  three  appendices  (1915); 
Social  Life  in  Britain  from  the  Conquest  to  the  Reformation  (1918).  Coulton's 
From  St.  Francis  to  Dante  is  a  summary  account  of  Fra  Salimbene's  diary, 
which  gives  a  most  lifelike  description  of  life  as  it  actually  was  in  Northern 
Italy  in  the  thirteenth  century.  H.  Adams,  in  his  Mt.  St.  Michel  and  Chartres, 
presents  some  excellent  illustrations  of  the  popular  worship  of  the  period, 
especially  that  of  the  Blessed  Virgin.  On  the  life  in  the  villages  of  England, 
Thorold  Rogers  made  extensive  research  and  the  results  are  attainable  in  a 
condensed  form  in  his  Work  and  Wages.  W.  Cunningham's  Growth  of  English 
Industry  and  Commerce,  Vol.  I,  is  most  informing;  and  the  same  author  has  a 
small  treatise  on  Usury.  F.  W.  Tickner,  Social  and  Industrial  History  of 
England,  gives  some  picturesque  details.  On  the  local  activities  of  the 
Church,  see  F.  A.  Gasquet  (Cardinal),  Parish  Life  in  Medieval  England,  and 
E.  L.  Cutts,  Parish  Priests  and  their  People  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  England 
(illustrated  edition,  1914)- 


A  SURVEY  OF  SOCIETY  353 

Really  to  understand  the  subject  it  is  necessary  to  go  to  such  documents 
as  the  accounts  of  the  manors,  municipal  archives,  episcopal  visitations,  etc. 
The  reader  will  find  great  help  in  the  bibliographies  prefixed  to  the  chapters 
of  Lavisse  and  Rambaud,  Histoire,  and  in  J.  Westfall  Thompson's  Reference 
Studies  in  Medieval  History,  second  edition,  1914,  Chap.  XXV.  Lea's 
History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy  and  History  of  Confession  and  Indulgences  are 
mines  of  unfriendly  information  for  the  condition  of  the  clergy. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM 

Dante  the  representative  of  the  best  of  Medievalism  —  Life  of  Dante— The  Vita 
Nuova  —  Henry  VII  of  Luxemburg  Emperor  —  Henry  VII  in  Italy  —  The  Divine 
Comedy  —  The  Inferno  —  Celestine  V  —  The  noble  heathen  —  Minos  the  Judge 

—  Paolo  and  Francesca  —  Mythological  monsters  in  The  Inferno  —  The  heretics  — 
The  lower  Hell  —  The  Malebolge  —  The  Simonists  —  Popes  Nicholas  and  Boni- 
face —  No  hope  for  the  lost  —  Purgatory  —  Cato  the  Censor  —  Miserable  con- 
dition of  Italy  —  Those  not  admitted  to  Purgatory  —  Dante  enters  Purgatory  — 
The  proud  —  The  envious  and  the  wrathful  —  A  Pope  in  Purgatory  —  Greed  and 
ambition  of  France  —  The  poet  Statius  —  Belief  in  Purgatory  —  The  Paradiso  — 
Heaven  of  the  Moon  Piccarda  and  the  Empress  Constance  —  Justinian  —  Charles 
Martel  —  Cunizza  —  Folco  —  The  Doctors  of  the  Church  —  Thomas  Aquinas 
praises  St.  Francis  —  Bonaventure  praises  St.  Dominic  —  Dante  and  his  ancestor 

—  The  righteous  rulers  —  The  rulers  in  Dante's  day — -The  eye  of  the  Eagle  of 
Justice  —  Can  a  heathen  be  saved  ?  —  The  contemplative  saints  —  The  Eternal 
Rose  —  Dante,  idealist,  reformer  and  prophet  —  Hope  in  a  restored  empire  — 
The  genius  of  Dante  —  Return  to  classical  antiquity  —  End  of  medievalism  — 
Medieval  civilization  western  —  Religion  and  law  —  Power  of  the  priesthood  — 
Faults  of  the  clergy  —  Learning  devoted  to  the  Church  —  Uncompromising 
theory  of  life  —  Enthusiasm  for  monasticism  fades  —  Gradual  weakening  of  the 
Papacy  —  Decay  of  feudalism;  growth  of  nations. 

Dante  is  the  supreme  example  of  the  best  thought  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  its  highest  aspirations  are  expressed  in  his 
writings.  With  him  medieval  civilization  culminates:  after  him 
it  begins  to  make  way  for  something  different.  The  Divine 
Comedy  is  the  expression  of  beliefs  which,  though  they  long 
continued  to  be  accepted  as  vitally  true,  yet  ceased  to  exercise 
the  dominating  influence  on  every  act  of  human  life  they  had 
previously  done. 

Gregory's  Dialogues  are  the  first  medieval  revelation  of 
the  world  beyond  the  grave  in  all  its  crude  simplicity;  in  Dante 
we  see  it  unfolded  six  centuries  later  in  a  supreme  effort  of 
the  finest  poetic  imagination.  His  learning,  moreover,  includes 
all  the  knowledge  of  his  day,  the  result  of  the  accumulated 
experience  of  the  Middle  Ages.  His  great  poem  the  Divine 
Comedy  is  the  flower  of  the  long  period  that  has  here  been  sur- 

3S4 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  355 

veyed  and  contains  the  seed  of  a  new  age.  Dante  is  the  first 
writer  to  produce  a  great  work  in  a  modern  European  language, 
and  also  he  is  the  first  medieval  layman  to  take  a  prominent 
place  in  the  learned  world.  Thoroughly  orthodox,  holding  all 
the  Church  teaches  with  undoubting  faith,  circumstances 
forced  Dante  into  uncompromising  hostility  towards  Boniface 
VIII,  the  last  of  the  great  popes  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  is  the 
first  to  develop  the  theory  that  Caesar,  not  Peter,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  Pope,  is  the  divinely  appointed  ruler  of  the  world. 

The  facts  of  his  life  are  not  numerous  or  particularly 
eventful,  as  he  played  on  the  whole  an  inconspicuous  part  in 
the  politics  of  his  age.  He  was  born  on  May  14th,  1265,  when 
the  constellation  of  the  Gemini  was  in  the  ascendant.  His 
family  was  respectable  rather  than  of  the  high  nobility  of 
Florence,  and  had  for  generations  been  settled  in  Italy.  His 
poetic  genius  was  fostered  by  the  influence  of  Provence  and 
Southern  France.  His  native  Florence  had  long  been  famed  for 
its  loyalty  to  the  Guelf  cause. 

At  the  age  of  nine  he  first  met  Beatrice,  who  was  a  few 
months  older,  and  he  cherished  a  romantic  love  for  her  till  her 
death  in  1290,  though,  apparently,  he  saw  her  but  rarely, 
and  she  herself  married.  In  thus  adoring  a  lady  at  a  distance 
Dante  was  following  the  tradition  of  the  troubadours;  and 
Beatrice  became  to  him  the  ideal  of  female  perfection,  and 
even  the  embodiment  of  heavenly  wisdom.  He  married  prob- 
ably after  her  death,  and  had  children;  but  he  was  early  parted 
from  his  wife  by  his  long  exile.  His  love  for  Beatrice,  as  de- 
scribed in  the  Vita  Nuova  (the  New  or  the  Young  Life),  marks 
a  departure  from  the  traditions  both  of  antiquity  and  the 
Middle  Ages.  From  time  immemorial  it  had  been  customary 
to  consider  woman,  with  rare  exceptions,  either  as  a  play- 
thing, or  a  nuisance,  and  the  heathen  philosopher  would  have 
cordially  agreed  with  the  Christian  ascetic  that  she  was  the 
greatest  hindrance  the  gods  or  the  devil  had  devised  to  the 
searcher  after  wisdom  or  the  heavenly  mysteries.  Dante,  on 
the  contrary,  makes  Beatrice  his  inspiration  and  guide  to 
spiritual  truth.  He  concludes  his  Vita  Nuova  thus: 


356  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

"A  wonderful  vision  appeared  to  me  in  which  I  saw  things 
which  made  me  resolve  to  speak  no  more  of  this  blessed  one, 
until  I  could  more  worthily  treat  of  her.  And  to  attain  to  this 
I  study  to  the  utmost  of  my  power  as  she  truly  knows.  So  that 
if  it  shall  please  Him,  through  whom  all  things  live  that  my 
life  shall  be  prolonged  for  some  years,  I  hope  to  say  of  her 
what  was  never  said  of  any  woman. 

"And  then  may  it  please  Him  who  is  the  Lord  of  grace, 
that  my  soul  may  go  to  behold  the  glory  of  this  lady,  namely, 
of  that  blessed  Beatrice,  who  in  glory  looks  upon  the  face  of 
Him,  who  is  blessed  throughout  all  ages." 

Thus  in  the  closing  passage  of  the  Vita  Nuova  Dante  fore- 
tells his  masterpiece,  the  Divine  Comedy. 

Dante  entered  political  life  in  1300,  the  year  of  the  Jubilee 
celebrated  in  Rome  by  Boniface  VIII.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  Signoria  or  Council  of  Florence,  and  a  vote  of  his  is  re- 
corded when  he  opposed  the  papal  demand  that  the  city  should 
furnish  one  hundred  knights.  The  minute  is  thus  worded: 

Dante  alagerius  consuluit  quod  de  servitio  faciendo 
Domino  Papce  nihil  fieret. 

In  regard  to  the  Lord  Pope's  demand  for  service 
Dante  Alighieri's  advice  was  that  nothing  should  be 
done. 

The  city  was  then  under  the  rule  of  the  "White,"  or  popular 
party,  and  as  each  citizen  had  to  enrol  himself  in  a  craft, 
Dante's  name  appears  among  the  medici,  or  physicians. 

When  Charles  of  Valois  entered  Florence,  the  aristocratic 
or  "Black"  party  triumphed  and  in  January,  1302,  Dante  and 
his  adherents  were  banished.  In  March  of  the  same  year  the 
rulers  of  Florence  condemned  him  to  be  burned  alive.  He  retired 
to  Can  Grande  della  Scala,  to  whom  he  subsequently  dedicated 
the  Paradiso.  The  rest  of  his  life  till  his  death  in  Ravenna, 
1321,  was  spent  in  exile.  He  died  on  the  Feast  of  the  Exalta- 
tion of  the  Cross,  and  was  buried  in  the  Church  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. The  Florentines  in  vain  petitioned  for  the  body  of  their 
greatest  citizen;  and  he  still  rests  in  Ravenna. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  357 

In  1308  Albert  of  Hapsburg  was  murdered  and  the  Empire 
was  vacant.  Both  he  and  his  predecessor  Rudolph  had  been 
occupied  in  Germany,  and  had  eschewed  adventures  in  Italy. 
Philip  the  Fair  desired  the  election  of  Charles  of  Valois,  and 
Pope  Clement  V  had  acted  with  his  usual  duplicity  in  secretly 
intriguing  to  defeat  the  design  of  France,  which  he  dared  not 
openly  oppose.  The  electors,  instead  of  choosing,  as  had  been 
customary,  a  powerful  German  prince,  selected,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  his  brother  Baldwin,  Archbishop  of  Treves,  Henry 
Count  of  Luxemburg  as  King  of  the  Romans.  For  a  prince 
with  such  small  hereditary  dominions  within  the  Empire,  it 
was  impossible  to  be  a  power  in  Germany;  and  Henry  VII 
undertook  the  desperate  adventure  of  seeking  imperial  au- 
thority south  of  the  Alps.  The  hopes  of  all  were  raised  by  this 
resolve;  even  Clement  V  saw  a  prospect  of  one  who  might  be 
an  Emperor  indeed  in  Italy  delivering  the  Pope  from  the  tyr- 
anny of  France.  Dante,  full  of  enthusiasm,  saw  the  fulfilment 
of  his  dream  of  an  universal  monarchy  bringing  peace  on 
earth.  Accordingly,  in  1309,  he  published  his  book  De  Mon- 
archia,  "the  first  political  treatise  of  importance,"  as  it  has 
been  styled,  "since  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Cicero."  1  Here  he 
explains  the  supreme  and  inalienable  rights  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  which  even  Constantine  had  no  authority  to  delegate 
to  Sylvester.  Not  that  he  defends  arbitrary  government:  for, 
he  says,  "Citizens  do  not  exist  for  the  consuls,  nor  subjects 
(for  the  king) ;  but  exactly  the  opposite  is  true." 

Henry  VII's  expedition  to  Italy  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  With  it  the  ideal  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
really  came  to  an  end.  Attended  by  a  small  retinue  the  King  of 
the  Romans  entered  Lombardy,  and  was  received  with  en- 
thusiasm. He  came  as  a  high-minded  pacificator  and  refused 
to  recognise  either  Ghibelline  or  Guelf.  He  was  welcomed  on 
all  sides  as  the  deliverer  of  Italy.  At  Milan,  in  the  Church  of 
St.  Ambrose,  he  was  crowned  with  the  Iron  Crown  of  Lom- 
bardy. Gradually  the  clouds  thickened  about  him.  A  would-be 
Emperor  without  money,  unaccompanied  by  an  army,  could 

1  Gregorovius,  History  of  the  City  of  Rome,  Vol.  VI,  p.  19,  E.  T. 


358  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

make  few  lasting  friends  in  Italy.  Still  he  persisted,  and  en- 
tered Rome,  though  dismayed  at  the  squalor  and  misery  to 
which  the  factions  had  reduced  the  City.  He  found  secret 
opposition  on  every  side.  Roger,  King  of  Naples,  was  there  to 
thwart  him  at  every  turn.  Clement  V,  with  his  usual  perfidy, 
intrigued  against  him,  though  he  allowed  him  to  be  crowned 
Emperor  in  the  Lateran  Basilica  on  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul's 
day,  June  29,  13 12.  Still  there  seemed  more  chance  of  success 
for  Henry  than  his  lack  of  material  resources  seemed  to 
warrant;  but,  just  as  he  was  about  to  attack  Roger  and  might 
have  established  his  credit  in  Italy,  he  was  taken  ill  and  died 
at  Siena  in  August,  13 13. 

With  the  untimely  removal  of  the  Emperor  the  hopes  of 
Dante  were  shattered.  But  to  these  the  world  owes  the  Divine 
Comedy,  which,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  supposed  to  be  the 
subject  of  a  vision  seen  in  1300,  though  it  alludes  to  the  deaths 
of  Clement  V  and  Philip  the  Fair  in  13 14.  But  the  ideal  of  a 
restored  Empire  pervades  the  whole  of  his  great  poem,  and  is 
the  key  to  almost  all  his  contemporary  historical  and  poetical 
allusions. 

The  first  book  of  the  Inferno  finds  the  poet,  "  midway  in 
the  journey  of  life,"  that  is  at  the  age  of  thirty-five,  in  a  dark 
wood  where  he  has  lost  his  way.  He  is  hindered  by  three  wild 
beasts,  a  Leopard  (lonza),  a  Lion  ileone)  and  a  She-wolf  (lupa). 
Probably  these  signify  Florence,  the  type  of  worldly  lust, 
ambition,  which  in  Dante's  day  was  so  thoroughly  represented 
by  the  royal  house  of  France,  and  avarice  was  papal  Rome, 
as  insatiable  as  the  wolf  honoured  by  the  pagan  city.  A  guide 
appears  in  Virgil,  who  foretells  that  the  Wolf  will  be  chased 
back  to  Hell,  from  whence  envy  let  her  loose,  by  a  Grey- 
hound (il  veltro).  Such  then  was  the  Italy  of  Dante's  day 
threatened  by  French  ambition  and  ground  down  by  papal 
avarice,  looking  for  a  deliverer,  some  new  pope  or  some  un- 
known Ghibelline  prince.  Virgil  offers  to  escort  Dante  through 
Hell  and  Purgatory  and  promises  a  nobler  guide  for  the  realms 
of  Heaven. 

The  journey  occupies  a  week,  and  to  understand  it  it  must 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  359 

be  borne  in  mind  that  to  Dante  the  centre  of  the  earth  is 
Jerusalem,  exactly  opposite  to  which  is  the  mount  of  Purga- 
tory by  which  Paradise  is  reached.  From  thence  the  ascent  to 
Heaven  is  made.  To  Hell  there  is  a  descent  by  ten  stages. 
Outside  are  those  colourless  persons  distinguished  for  neither 
virtue  nor  vice,  not  bad  enough  for  Hell,  not  good  enough  for 
Heaven.  They  have  lived  without  infamy  or  credit  {senza  in- 
famia  e  senza  lodo)  and  have  no  punishment  save  the  misery 
of  envying  everybody.  Among  these  is  the  man  whose  abject 
spirit  caused  him  to  make  the  great  refusal,  generally  supposed 
to  be  Celestine  V,  whose  abdication  of  the  Papacy  made  way 
for  the  hateful  rule  of  Boniface  VIII.1  In  the  Limbus,  or  fringe, 
of  Hell  are  the  Heathen,  whose  only  sin  was  that  they  did  not 
worship  the  true  God.  This  is  the  first  circle,  and  here  Dante 
meets  the  heroes,  sages  and  poets  of  antiquity  who  are  only 
punished  by  living  without  hope. 

The  virtuous  heathen  are  found  in  verdant  meadows  in  a 
noble  castle.  They  appeared  to  the  poet  "as  people  with  eyes 
slow  and  grave,  of  great  authority  in  their  appearance,  speak- 
ing seldom  with  mild  voices."  Among  the  sages  are  "the 
Master  of  those  who  know"  (Aristotle),  Socrates,  Plato,  and 
Democritus.  Thales,  Zeno,  Dioscorides,  Orpheus  and  Tully 
(Cicero),  Seneca,  Euclid,  Ptolemy,  Hippocrates,  Avicenna, 
Galen,  and  Averrhoes,  "who  made  the  great  comment"  (on 
Aristotle).2  Next  follow  the  circles  of  punishment  for  the  sins 
arranged  according  to  Aristotle  under  three  heads:  I,  Incon- 
tinence, which  includes  all  wrong  action  due  to  the  inadequate 
control  of  natural  appetite  or  desire;  II,  Brutishness,  or  vio- 
lence, characteristic  of  morbid  states,  in  which  what  is  naturally 
repulsive  becomes  attractive;  III,  Malice  or  Vice,  which  con- 
sists of  those  evil  actions  which  involve  the  abuse  of  the 
specifically  human  attributes  of  reason. 

Dante  now  enters  the  abode  of  pain,  where  Minos  sits  as 
judge.  The  second    circle  is   reserved  for  those  who  fell  into 

1  Inferno,  Canto  III,  34-39. 

2  Inferno,  IV.  58  ad  fin.    The  poets  are  Homer,  Horace  'the  Satirist,'  Ovid,  and 
Lucan. 


360  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

incontinence  and  are  driven  to  and  fro  by  a  terrific  storm.  Here 
Dante  meets  Francesca  and  her  lover  Paolo  and  learns  from 
her  the  tale  of  their  death.  It  is  evident  that  the  poet  has  great 
sympathy  for  those  who  have  given  way  to  sin  through  weak- 
ness; but  is  unplacable  to  those  whose  avarice,  cruelty  and 
treachery  have  met  with  severe  punishment.  On  hearing 
Francesca's  sad  tale,1  he  faints  "and  falls  as  a  dead  body 
falls."  {E  cadaiy  come  corpo  morto  cade.) 

The  Inferno  in  its  setting  is  not  so  much  Christian  as 
classical.  The  fiends  are  those  of  Virgil  and  not  of  the  imagin- 
ings of  the  Church,  though  the  belief  that  the  heathen  gods 
were  demons  was  general.  Minos  presides  over  the  Second 
circle  and  Cerberus  is  in  the  Third.2 

The  topography  throughout  is  Virgilian;  and  in  the  descent 
to  the  lowest  pit  one  meets  with  Plutus,  the  Furies,  the  head 
of  Medusa,  Antaeus,  proofs  of  the  influence  of  the  mythology 
of  antiquity  upon  the  Christian  imagination  as  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  lost.  It  is  noticeable,  moreover,  that  Dante  passes 
rapidly  through  the  upper  circles,  the  abode  of  carnal  sinners 
and  even  of  the  heretics,  and  devotes  more  than  half  his  poem 
to  those  criminals  whose  sins  demand  the  severest  reprobation. 

In  the  third  circle  are  the  gluttons,  sinking  in  mud  and 
tormented  by  loathsome  rain,  hail  and  snow.  Here  he  finds  an 
old  Florentine  friend,  who  foretells  to  the  poet  what  will  hap- 
pen to  their  native  city.  He  then  sinks  in  the  mire  to  wake  no 
more  "till  the  last  trumpet  shall  sound."3  The  fourth  circle  is 
the  place  of  the  avaricious  and  the  prodigal,  rolling  heavy 
weights,  smiting  and  reproaching  one  another.  Priests  and 
Popes  and  Cardinals  are  here,  and  Dante  asks  whether  any 
of  them  are  known  to  him.  But  Virgil  says  that  their  lives  on 

1  Her  words,  Inferno,  V.  121, 

Nessun  maggior  dolore, 
Che  recordarsi  del  tempo  felice  nella  miseria, 
finds  an  echo  in  Tennyson's  allusion  to  them 

"Sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  is  remembering  happier  things." 

2  Inferno,  V.  4,  VI.  13. 

3  Inferno,  VI.  37  ff. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  361 

earth  have  been  so  sordid  that  they  are  all  alike  in  Hell,  and  it 
is  impossible  to  recognise  one  from  another.1 

The  poets  descend  to  the  fifth  circle,  the  dreary  marshes 
of  the  Styx,  and  pass  among  the  wrathful  and  sullen,  sunk  in 
the  black  mire,  saying,  "Sullen  we  were  in  the  sweet  air,  that  is 
gladdened  by  the  Sun  .  .  .  and  now  lie  we  sullen  in  the 
black  mire."2  After  this  they  enter  the  city  of  Dis  where  live 
the  Fallen  Angels.  In  the  sixth  circle  they  find  the  heretics. 
It  is  frequently  asserted  that  Dante  delighted  in  consigning 
his  personal  and  political  enemies  to  the  infernal  regions,  but 
this  is  not  borne  out  by  a  perusal  of  his  poem.  Among  the 
heretics  who  are  found  in  chests  with  the  lids  not  yet  closed  is 
Farinata  degli  Uberti,  who,  bitter  Guelf  though  he  was,  had 
at  least  saved  his  native  Florence  from  destruction  from  her 
enemies.  Dignified,  even  in  the  midst  of  torment,  "upright 
with  heart  and  countenance,  as  if  he  entertained  great  scorn 
of  Hell  (come  avessi  lo  inferno  in  grand  dispitto)."3  He  tells 
Dante  that,  where  he  is,  they  remember  the  past  and  can  fore- 
tell the  future,  but  of  the  present  they  know  nothing.  Here 
also  the  poet  finds  his  friend  Guido  Cavalcanti,  to  whom  he 
had  dedicated  the  Vita  Nuova,  son-in-law  of  Farinata,  and  also 
a  Guelf.  Among  the  Ghibellines  are  Frederic  II  and  Cardinal 
Octavian.  Dante  beholds  a  monument  declaring  that  here  is 
buried  Anastasius,  the  pope,  who  had  perverted  the  faith, 
probably  confused  with  the  Emperor  of  that  name.4 

Eleven  cantos  have  been  devoted  to  the  upper  part  of 
Hell  and  now  the  poets  descend  to  its  lowest  depths  as  they 
enter  the  seventh  circle.  Here  violence,  fraud  and  treachery 
are  punished  and  here  are  the  most  terrible  monsters  of  pagan 
antiquity,  the  Minotaur,  the  Centaurs,  the  Harpies.  No  less 
than  twenty-two  books  are  devoted  to  this  most  dreadful 
portion  of  the  nether  world. 

In  the  wood  of  the  suicides  is  Peter  de  Vinea,  the  trusted 

1  Inferno,  VII.  52-54. 

2  Inferno,  VII.  121-124. 

3  Inferno,  X.  34. 

4  Inferno,  XI.  7-9.    The  Pope  Anastasius  and  the  Emperor  of  the  same  name 

(401-518)  were  contemporaries. 


362  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  afterwards  disgraced  minister  of  Frederic  II,  who  is 
changed  into  a  tree,  which  bleeds  as  Dante  breaks  a  bough. 
Peter  declares  that  he  was  entirely  innocent  of  the  crimes  laid 
to  his  charge  and  had  always  served  the  Emperor  faithfully.1 
Among  the  "violent  against  Nature,"  the  Poet  finds  the  teach- 
ers of  youth,  "many  great  clerks,"  and  his  old  friend  Brunetto 
Latini,  with  whom  he  has  a  long  and  earnest  conversation  and 
is  warned  of  the  plots  which  the  two  factions  of  Florence  the 
Black  (aristocratic)  and  the  White  (popular)  will  agree  in 
making  against  him.2 

From  the  eighteenth  to  the  thirtieth  canto  the  poem 
describes  a  journey  through  the  part  of  Hell  called  Malebolge. 
Here  pandars  and  seducers,  flatterers,  simonists,  evil  counsel- 
lors, diviners,  barrators,  thieves  and  others  undergo  their 
punishment. 

A  dreadful  place  of  torment  is  reserved  for  clerics  guilty 
of  Simony.  They  are  confined  in  holes  cut  in  the  stone,  which 
remind  Dante  of  those  in  the  Baptistery  of  Florence,  one  of 
which  he  broke  to  rescue  a  boy  from  drowning.  But  here  the 
victims  are  placed  head  downwards,  and  the  poet  can  only  see 
their  quivering  limbs.  As  he  approaches  one  of  the  damned 
souls  and  addresses  him,  he  is  met  by  the  question,  "Art  thou 
already  standing,  Art  thou  already  standing,  Boniface?"3 
The  voice  is  that  of  Nicholas  III,  the  Orsini  pope  {figliuol  delV 
orsa),  whose  shameless  nepotism  disgusted  his  age.  He  foresees 
that  he  will  soon  be  joined  by  Boniface  VIII,  whose  simony 
has  been  even  more  flagrant.  To  him  will  succeed  a  still  meaner 
pope  in  Clement  V,  who,  like  Jason  in  the  second  book  of  the 
Maccabees  (II  Mace.  IV,  7-13),  will  prostitute  his  priestly 
office  to  the  will  of  the  King  of  France.  The  poet  here  breaks 
into  a  fierce  invective  against  the  corrupt  Papacy  of  his  age. 
In  it  the  vision  in  the  book  of  Revelation  is  fulfilled;  for  it  is 
the  whore  which  sitteth  in  the  waters  and  committeth  forni- 

1  Inferno,  XIII,  cf.  Virgil,  Aen.,  Ill,  22,  the  story  of  Polydorus,  which  suggested 
the  idea  to  Dante. 

2  Inferno,  XV.  28  ff. 

8  Inferno,  XIX.  3 1  ff. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  363 

cation  with  the  kings  of  the  earth.  The  Simonaical  Papacy  is 
worse  than  idolatry,  and  Constantine  injured  the  Church  by 
the  dower  which  the  "first  rich  father"  (Sylvester  I)  took 
from  him.  The  Donation  of  Constantine,  accepted  as  literal 
history,  by  Dante  was  the  ruin  of  the  Church.1  In  a  still  lower 
hell  the  poet  finds  Boniface's  counsellor  Guido  of  Montefeltro, 
who  after  leading  a  secular  life  became  a  Franciscan,  but  was 
summoned  by  the  Pope,  "the  Prince  of  the  new  Pharisees," 
to  assist  him  to  ruin  the  family  of  the  Colonnas.2 

Virgil  and  Dante  now  descend  lower  and  lower  and  witness 
the  punishments  of  the  worst  sinners,  those  who  dealt  in  un- 
lawful magic,  the  thieves,  the  sowers  of  discord,  the  treacherous, 
the  traitors  who  betrayed  their  country  or  their  friends.  At 
last  they  reach  the  lowest  hell,  a  place  of  icy  cold,  where  Satan 
reigns,  and  in  his  teeth  champs  the  three  guiltiest  of  mankind, 
Judas,  who  betrayed  Christ,  the  type  of  all  enemies  of  the 
Church,  and  Brutus  and  Cassius,  who  slew  Caesar,  the  traitors 
to  the  empire.  From  thence  the  poets  ascend  to  earth  again 
and  once  more  behold  the  stars. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  the  Inferno  of  Dante 
was  not  the  hell  of  popular  imagination.  The  only  thing  which 
recalls  the  place  of  punishment  as  depicted  in  art  is  the  part 
of  the  Malebolge  where  the  demons  torment  the  sinners,  and 
fight  with  one  another.  Otherwise  it  is  the  underworld  of 
Virgil,  rendered  more  terrible  by  the  vivid  imagination  of  his 
Christian  disciple.  To  him  if  the  scene  is  imaginary,  the  suf- 
ferings are  intensely  real.  They  are  eternal  and  there  is  ab- 
solutely no  hope  for  the  lost.  As  the  more  perfect  a  creature 
is,  the  more  it  is  capable  of  suffering,  the  pains  of  the  damned 
will  be  more  acute  when  they  are  perfected  by  the  restoration 
of  their  bodies  at  the  Judgment.  And  to  this  hell  all  outside 
the  Church  must  inevitably  go.  Even  those  unjustly  excom- 

1  Inferno,  XIX.  106  ff.,  115-117. 

2  Inferno,  XXVII.  67  ad  fin.  I  found  a  most  curious  blunder  in  Michelet's  History 
of  France.  He  places  Gerbert  Sylvester  II  (999-1003)  in  hell  as  a  magician  and  refers 
to  this  canto  in  Dante.  Guido  says  that  Boniface  summoned  him  to  cure  his  fever  of 
vengeance  as  Constantine  did  Sylvester  from  Mount  Serapte.  The  historian  has  con- 
fused the  two  Sylvesters,  owing  to  a  careless  glance  at  the  passage. 


364  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

municated  can  with  difficulty  escape.  Here  is  a  key  to  the  mind 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Men  lived  in  terror  of  everlasting  fire  and 
fled  to  the  Church  in  which  alone  lay  any  hope  of  deliverance. 
As  a  Ghibelline,  Dante  is  no  friend  to  the  papal  hierarchy;  but 
he  denounces  their  abuses,  not  their  office,  and  he  would  have 
agreed  with  the  declaration  extra  ecclesiam  nulla  salus. 

The  Purgatory  of  Dante  like  both  his  Hell  and  Heaven 
has  ten  main  stages  and  nine  books  are  devoted  to  the  two 
through  which  one  must  pass  before  entering  Purgatory  itself. 
The  mountain  was  formed  when  Satan  was  hurled  into  Hell; 
and  it  was  thrown  up  at  the  Antipodes.  It  became  the  means 
of  the  salvation  of  men  who  ascend  it  by  seven  levels  on  each 
of  which  they  do  penance  for  one  of  the  seven  deadly  sins.  On 
reaching  the  summit  they  enter  the  Earthly  Paradise  which 
Adam  and  his  progeny  forfeited  at  the  Fall.  Man  is  thus  restored 
to  his  original  purity  by  suffering;  and  he  is  translated  from 
the  earthly  state  of  innocency  to  the  heavenly  realm  by  grace. 

The  souls  embarking  for  Purgatory  sing  the  Psalm  In 
exitu  Israel,  and  among  them  is  Dante's  friend,  the  musician 
Casella.  As  the  poets  tarry  to  listen  to  his  singing  "the  old  man 
venerable"  (il  veglio  onesto,  Cato,  i.e.,  the  representative  of 
pagan  virtue)  rebukes  the  laggard  spirits  and  urges  them  to 
the  work  of  purifying  their  souls.1 

Outside  Purgatory,  which  they  may  not  enter,  though  they 
are  not  among  the  lost,  are  those  unjustly  excommunicated. 
Dante  recognises  Manfred,  who  tells  him  how  Charles  of  Anjou 
and  his  soldiers  buried  him  after  his  defeat  at  Benevento,  but 
the  Bishop  of  Cosenza,  urged  on  by  Pope  Clement,  exhumed  the 
body.  But  by  curse  of  such  as  these  a  man  is  not  lost,  only  he 
must  roam  around  Purgatory  for  thirty  times  his  years  on 
earth,  but  the  period  can  be  shortened  by  holy  prayers.2 

1  Purgatorio,  II,  118. 

2  Purgatorio,  II,  118.   Dante  is  evidently  influenced  by  the  story  of  Palinurus,  the 
pilot  of  jEneas,  who  could  not  rest  till  the  rites  of  burial  were  performed.  JEn.,  VI, 

337  ff. 

Centum  errant  annos  volitantque  haec  litore  circum, 

turn  demum  admissi  stagna  exoptata  revisunt. — jEn.,  VI,  329-330. 

Even  the  curse  of  the  worst  Popes  and  Bishops  had  an  effect  though  it  had  been 
unjustly  pronounced. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  365 

The  next  halting  place  is  the  abode  of  the  late  repentant 
and  here  Virgil  finds  his  fellow  countryman,  the  poet  Sordello 
of  Mantua.  Sordello  is  glad  to  meet  a  Mantuan,  but  when  he 
learns  that  it  is  Virgil,  he  falls  at  his  feet  in  adoration. 

At  this  point  Dante  utters  a  denunciation  of  Italy  where 
all  is  in  confusion,  because  it  is  like  a  horse  bridled  by  Justinian, 
i.e.,  by  Roman  law,  with  no  one  to  mount  him.  Montagues 
and  Capulets  (Montecchi  e  Cappelletti)  are  dividing  the  country 
by  their  factions  and  there  is  no  controlling  power.  The  poet 
bitterly  reproaches  the  house  of  Hapsburg  and  the  Emperor 
Albert  for  forsaking  Italy,  and  says  that  this  neglect  deserves 
the  judgment  of  heaven.  Here  is  the  dominant  ideal  of  Dante. 
The  Emperor  is  the  ruler  appointed  by  God  for  the  civil 
government  of  the  world.  The  Papacy  and  the  Italian  cities 
have  brought  misery  by  their  rebellion  against  him;  and  till 
some  one  shall  arise  who  will  exert  the  power  the  Roman  law 
gives  him,  there  can  be  no  peace.1 

Outside  Purgatory,  as  the  feeble  Pope  who  made  the  grand 
refusal  is  outside  Hell,  are  the  negligent  rulers  who  deserve  not 
damnation,  and  yet  are  unworthy  of  purification.  In  his  es- 
timate of  these  the  character  of  Dante  becomes  evident,  as 
that  of  a  man  who  hates  feeble  virtue  as  cordially  as  he  does 
open  vice.  A  representative  of  this  kind  of  goodness  is  our 
Henry  III.  The  King  of  the  simple  life  (il  re  della  semplice 
vita  .  .  .  Arrigo  d'Inghilterra),  whose  son  Edward  I  with  his 
manly  character  is  better  than  his  father.2  That  the  Poet  con- 
demns men  for  their  character  and  not  for  their  politics,  is 
shown  by  his  fierce  denunciations  of  the  then  King  of  France, 
Philip  the  Fair.  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  the  Emperor  who  might 
have  healed  the  wounds  of  Italy,  is  here,  so  is  his  enemy  Ottocar 
of  Bohemia  with  Peter  IV  of  Aragon,  and  Charles  I  of  Anjou. 

At  last  Dante  enters  Purgatory.  Seven  P's  are  stamped 
on  his  forehead,  the  seven  deadly  sins  which  one  by  one  are  to 
be  washed  off  as  he  passes  through  the  seven  circles  of  pro- 
bation. It  would  be  superfluous  here  to  dwell  on  the  punish- 

1  Purgatorio,  VI,  76  ff. 
8  Purgatorio,  VII,  130. 


366  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

ments  in  each  successive  circle.  In  the  first  the  proud  are 
crushed  under  heavy  burthens.  Among  them  are  the  artists, 
represented  by  Oderisi,  the  miniature  painter;  here  also  is  the 
proud  Sienese  Provenzan  Salvani,  saved  because  he  begged  in 
the  market  place  of  his  native  city  to  redeem  a  friend,  who 
had  fallen  into  the  cruel  hands  of  Charles  of  Anjou.  As 
Dante  ascends  to  the  next  circle  one  of  the  P's  is  wiped  from 
his  forehead  and  he  mounts  as  though  a  burthen  had  been 
removed. 

Those  mentioned  as  present  among  the  envious,  who  are 
punished  by  having  their  eyes  sewn  up,  and  crowd  together 
as  the  blind  beggars  at  a  Pardon,  are  from  the  Romagna.  In 
the  circle  of  the  wrathful  Dante  meets  Mark  the  Lombard  of 
Venice,  who  discourses  of  fate  and  free  will.  He  explains  how 
true  freedom  is  the  service  of  God,  and  then  denounces  the 
wealth  and  avarice  of  the  Papacy.  Rome  that  made  the  good 
world  had  two  aims,  one  to  make  plain  the  law  of  man,  the 
other  the  law  of  God.  But  now  the  sword  is  in  the  same  hand 
as  the  shepherd's  crook  (e  giunta  la  spada  col  pastorale)  and 
all  goes  ill,  as  Lombardy,  where  worth  and  courtesy  once 
prevailed  now  testifies,  since  Frederic  II  and  the  pope  were 
in  opposition.1  Now  the  Poet  understands  why  Levi  was  to 
have  no  inheritance,  since  he  perceives  that  the  Curse  of  the 
Papacy  is  its  wealth.  The  thick  mists  which  oppress  the 
wrathful  are  now  past:  Dante  and  Virgil  enter  the  circle  where 
the  sin  of  sloth  is  expiated,  and  sees  the  sinners  disciplined 
by  having  to  run  ceaselessly. 

The  avaricious  and  the  prodigal  are  both  punished  by 
having  to  lie  with  their  faces  to  the  earth.  In  this  circle  Dante 
finds  Ottobuoni  de'  Fieschi  who  had  been  papal  legate  in 
England  in  1268,  and  became  Pope  as  Hadrian  V,  reigning 
only  a  few  days  more  than  a  month  (1276).  In  language  which 
reminds  us  of  Hadrian  IV's  bitter  complaint  to  his  friend, 
John  of  Salisbury,  this  Hadrian  declares  that  the  trials  he 
endured  as  Pastor  of  Rome  converted  him  so  that  he  escaped 
Hell  but  had  to  endure  the  worst  of  all  punishments  on  the 

1  PurgatoTw,  XVI,  64  ff. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  367 

Mount.  When  Dante  knelt  in  acknowledgment  of  the  papal 
office  Hadrian  sternly  ordered  him  to  rise,  and  commended  to 
him  his  niece  Alagia,  who  was  the  wife  of  one  of  the  Malaspini 
friends  of  the  Poet.1 

The  next  shade  with  whom  Dante  conversed  was  Hugh 
Capet,  son,  as  he  says,  of  a  butcher  of  Paris  and  the  founder 
of  the  royal  house  of  France,  whose  overweening  greed  and 
ambition  he  bitterly  deplores.  He  ends  his  discourse  by  a  de- 
scription of  the  humiliation  of  Boniface  VIII.  Enemy  as  he 
was,  Dante  could  not  write  of  the  degradation  of  a  Pope  un- 
moved. Christ  was  made  captive  in  the  person  of  his  vicar. 
The  vinegar  and  the  gall  were  renewed;  and  Philip  the  Fair 
denounced  as  the  Second  Pilate.2 

Virgil  and  Dante  are  here  joined  by  a  third  poet,  Statius, 
who,  when  he  knows  who  Virgil  is,  tells  him  that  he  was  con- 
verted to  Christianity  by  reading  the  Fourth  Eclogue,  and  has 
remained  so  many  centuries  in  Purgatory  because  he  lacked 
the  courage  to  declare  himself. 

After  ascending  to  the  places  where  gluttony  and  lust  are 
purified,  Dante  bids  farewell  to  Virgil,  who  crowns  him  as 
a  poet  on  parting,  and  he  enters  the  Earthly  Paradise. 

While  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Dante  must  not  be 
taken  literally,  but  that  his  purpose  is  allegorical,  its  object 
being  to  show  that  divine  justice  is  seen  in  the  whole  fate  of 
man,  here  and  hereafter,  his  poem  still  throws  much  light  on  the 
beliefs  of  his  age.  For  the  sufferers  in  Hell  and  Purgatory  are 
not  abstractions,  but  real  men,  many  of  whom  the  poet  had 
known  familiarly.  This  gives  extraordinary  interest  to  the 
Divine  Comedy,  but  it  also  makes  the  reader  understand  what 
Purgatory  meant  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Its  torments  are  as  real 
as  those  of  the  Inferno,  only  the  sufferers  rejoice  in  them  be- 
cause they  know  them  to  be  remedial  and  by  them  they  are 
continually  rising  heavenward.  Therefore  they  sing  hymns  of 
gladness  as  they  approach  the  place  of  punishment,  and  ascend 
to  new  penalties  with  songs  of  gratitude.  But  when  we  realise 


1  Purgatorio,  XIX,  97  ff. 

2  Purgatorio,  XX,  70-78. 


368  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

that  Statius  had  been  suffering  for  close  on  twelve  centuries, 
it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  popular  dread  of  Purga- 
tory, or  how  those  who  had  loved  people  on  earth  were  ready 
to  make  any  sacrifice  for  their  beloved  dead  in  order  to  shorten 
their  sufferings.  The  numerous  chantries  attest  that  the  pangs 
of  Purgatory  were  very  real  in  the  minds  of  succeeding  gen- 
erations. 

The  Paradiso  is  a  more  difficult  poem  than  either  of  its 
predecessors;  and  here  we  have  the  science  of  Dante's  age  set 
forward  to  its  fullest  extent.  It  demands  a  consummate  knowl- 
edge of  medieval  science  and  philosophy  to  understand,  and, 
even  when  treating  only  on  the  historical  side,  it  is  no  easy 
task  to  describe  it. 

As  in  the  Babylonian  cosmology,  the  earth  is  the  centre  of 
the  system  in  the  midst  of  the  seven  planetary  spheres;  round 
these  move  the  stellar  heaven  and  the  Primum  Mobile,  and 
beyond  these  nine  circles  is  the  Empyrean  Heaven,  where  God 
is,  and  with  Him  all  the  angels  and  the  souls  of  the  redeemed 
have  their  true  abiding  place. 

On  reaching  the  heaven  of  the  Moon  Dante  shows  how  the 
celestial  topography  differs  from  that  of  other  regions.  In  this 
the  lowest  heaven  he  finds  Piccarda,  the  sister  of  his  friend 
Forese  Donati,  and  the  Empress  Constance,  heiress  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Sicily  and  mother  of  Frederic  II.  These  spirits 
are  in  the  lowest  heaven,  because  they  had  been  forced  to 
marry,  though  they  had  already  taken  vows  as  nuns.  Dante 
asks  Piccarda  whether  she  is  not  disappointed  with  her  lowly 
grade  in  heaven;  but  she  replies  that  to  be  so  would  be  to  rebel 
against  the  Divine  will,  and  that  in  Heaven  is  perfect  content- 
ment, for  there  God's  will  "is  our  peace."  The  Poet  then 
understands  that  everywhere  here  is  Paradise.1 

In  the  second  heaven  of  Mercury  is  Justinian,  who  ex- 
pounds the  theory  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  great  lawgiver, 

1  Chiaro  mi  fu  allor  com'  ogni  dove 
in  cielo  e  Paradiso,  e  si  la  grazia 
del  sommo  ben  d'un  modo  non  vi  piove. 

Paradiso,  III,  88-90. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  369 

who  had  been  converted  from  the  Monophysite  heresy  by 
Pope  Agapetus,  gives  a  sketch  of  Roman  history  from  the  days 
of  the  Kings  of  Alba  Longa,  reaching  rapidly  the  victories  of 
Caesar  and  Augustus,  the  redemption  of  the  human  race  in 
the  days  of  Tiberius,  and  the  punishment  of  the  Jews  by 
Titus  for  crucifying  Christ.  Passing  over  the  intervening 
period,  Justinian  tells  of  the  deliverance  of  Rome  by  Charles 
the  Great,  and  of  the  present  ills  of  Italy.  Ghibelline  as  he  is, 
Dante  makes  Justinian  declare  that  it  is  hard  to  say  which 
party  is  most  in  the  wrong.  The  Guelfs  support  the  French 
against  the  Empire,  and  their  rivals  use  the  Empire  in  support 
of  their  factions'  aims.1  Dante  is  in  fact  wholehearted  in  his 
advocacy,  not  of  his  party,  but  of  the  imperial  idea.  He  hates 
France  as  much  as  he  does  the  worldly  Papacy  because  both 
hinder  the  restoration  of  the  pax  Romana  under  a  virtuous 
Emperor.  The  Ghibelline  faction,  which  upheld  the  French 
royalty  in  Sicily,  is  as  much  opposed  to  his  hopes  as  every 
other  power  hostile  to  Caesar. 

As  Dante  moves  upward  he  is  instructed  in  the  mysteries 
of  the  Christian  faith  by  his  companion  Beatrice,  whom  he 
loved  on  earth.  She  explains  the  Creation,  the  Fall,  the  In- 
carnation, the  Redemption  and  the  whole  scheme  of  man's 
salvation  from  sin,  following  in  the  main  the  argument  of 
Anselm's  Cur  Deus  Homo. 

In  the  third  heaven,  that  of  Venus,  Dante  meets  his  friend 
Charles  Martel,  King  of  Hungary,  son  of  Charles  II  of  Anjou, 
who  spoke  of  all  the  lordships  he  might  have  inherited,  and 
alludes  to  the  loss  of  Sicily  to  his  house  in  the  Vespers,  when 
the  people  of  Palermo  cried  Die!  Die! 

In  the  same  heaven  is  Cunizza,  the  sister  of  Ezzelino  de 
Romano,  the  cruel  chief  of  the  Ghibellines  under  Frederic  II, 
whose  appalling  tyrannies  in  northern  Italy  make  his  sister 
speak  of  him  as  "the  firebrand  who  made  a  dire  assault  on 

1  L'uno  al  pubblico  segno  i  gigli  gialli 
oppone,  e  l'altro  appropria  quello  a  parte 
si  che  forte  a  veder  e  chi  piu  falli. 

Paradiso,  VI,  100-102. 


370  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  country."  *  Cunizza  had  not  by  any  means  a  spotless  repu- 
tation, but  her  abundant  charities  won  her  a  place  in  heaven. 
Equally  fortunate  was  the  amorous  troubadour  Folco,  who 
atoned  for  his  sins  as  Bishop  of  Toulouse  by  his  vigour  against 
heretics  in  the  Albigensian  War.  Safe  in  heaven,  his  sin  of  m- 
continency  troubled  him  no  longer,  any  more  than  does  his 
cruelty  to  heretics,  which  Dante  must  have  ranked  among  his 
merits.  The  Poet  after  this  rebukes  the  Pope  for  his  lack  of 
interest  in  the  crusades  and  the  clergy  for  neglecting  the 
Gospel   and  the  great   Doctors  for  the   study  of  the  Canon 

Law.2 

In  the  fourth  heaven  of  the  Sun  are  the  Doctors  and  Sages. 
Among  these  are  Thomas  Aquinas,  who  indicates  to  Dante  his 
master  Albert  the  Great,  and  then  points  out  Gratian  the  famous 
canonist,  Peter  Lombard,  and  King  Solomon.  The  poet  also 
sees  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  probably  the  historian  Orosius, 
the  little  light  (piccioletta  luce)  to  whom  Augustus  suggested 
his  theme,  Boethius,  Isidore  of  Seville,  Bede,  and  Richard  of 
St.  Victor;  lastly  Thomas'  opponent  at  Paris,  Sigier  of  Brabant. 
The  list  is  interesting,  as  showing  who  were  held  in  the  highest 
estimation  as  philosophers.3 

Thomas  continues  his  discourse  by  explaining  how  God 
raised  up  two  princes  to  be  guides  to  the  Church,  the  one 
Seraphic  (symbolical  of  love),  the  other  Cherubic  (of  wisdom). 
These  were  Francis  and  Dominic.  Francis's  glory  was  his  es- 
pousal of  the  Lady  Poverty,  who  had  been  neglected  for  eleven 
centuries  and  more.  She  it  was  who,  when  Mary  stayed  below, 
mounted  the  Cross  with  Christ.  After,  receiving  the  stigmata, 
Francis,  the  illustrious  soul  {Vanima  preclara),  bequeathed  his 
lady  to  his  brethren. 

As  himself  a  Dominican,  Thomas  does  not   pass   such   a 

i  una  facella 

Che  fece  alia  contrada  un  grande  assalto. 

Paradiso,  X,  32,  33. 
2  e  solo  ai  Decretali 

si  studia  si  che  pare  ai  lor  vivagni. — Paradiso,  IX,  134-135. 
(Alluding  to  the  glosses  on  the  Canon  Law.) 
s  Paradiso,  X,  95. 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  37 1 

eulogy  on  his  own  founder,  but  expiates  on  the  degeneracy  of 
the  Order.  The  praise  of  Dominic  is  placed  in  the  mouth  of 
Bonaventura,  the  glory  of  the  Franciscans.  He  tells  how  at 
Calahorra  Dominic  was  born  to  be  the  sacred  athlete,  gentle  to 
the  friends  and  cruel  to  the  foes  of  the  Christian  faith.  Bona- 
ventura ends,  as  Aquinas  had  concluded,  by  a  denunciation 
this  time  of  the  corruption  of  modern  Franciscans.1  It  after- 
wards became  a  general  custom  for  a  Franciscan  to  say  mass 
in  a  Dominican  Convent  on  the  feast  of  St.  Dominic  (October 
4)  and  a  Dominican  to  do  so  when  Francis  was  commemo- 
rated on  August  4. 

As  iEneas  meets  his  father  Anchises  among  the  shades,  so, 
in  the  heaven  of  Mars,  does  Dante  learn  his  future  from  his 
great-great-grandfather  Cacciaguida,  a  Florentine  who  had 
been  one  of  the  Knights  of  Conrad  III,  and  was  killed  in  the 
crusade  of  1147.  The  Poet  is  told  by  his  ancestor  of  the  happi- 
ness of  Florence  in  those  early  days  when  the  greatest  lived  in 
simplicity,  andthe  matron  came  from  hermirror"with  unpainted 
face."  The  great  families  of  the  city  are  enumerated,  and  the 
fall  and  degeneracy  of  many  are  made  the  subject  of  Caccia- 
guida's  lamentation.  He  regrets  the  influx  of  strangers,  the 
factions  and  the  luxury  of  the  Florentines,  and  declares  that 
in  his  days  the  city  was  indeed  honourable.  The  whole  passage 
is  of  great  interest  as  a  key  to  the  domestic  history  of  the 
place. 

Lastly  Dante  is  warned  that  there  are  plots  against  him, 
hatched  where  Christ  is  every  day  put  out  to  sale,  i.e.,  at  Rome. 
He  shall  know  the  wretchedness  of  exile,  and  shall  learn  how 
salt  is  another's  bread  and  how  hard  is  the  path  up  and  down  a 
stranger's  staircase.2  But  Cacciaguida  bids  the  Poet  not  to  be 
dismayed,  he  must  trust  to  the  Emperor  Henry  VII  in  whom 
his  hopes  are  fixed;  and  he  assures  his  descendant  that  he  will 
outlive  his  persecutors.   He  also  commands    Dante  to  reveal 

1  Paradiso,  XI  and  XII,  passim. 

2  Tu  proverai  si  come  sa  di  sale 

II  pani  altrui,  e  com'  e  duro  calle 

Lo  scendere  e  il  salir  per  l'altrui  scale. 

Paradiso,  XVII,  58-60. 


372  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

all  his  vision  and  not  to  be  dismayed  at  the  temporary  pros- 
perity of  sinners. 

It  is  a  part  of  Dante's  theory  of  the  government  of  the 
human  race  that  a  very  lofty  sphere  is  allotted  to  those  who 
have  ruled  wisely.  In  Jupiter,  the  white  planet,  the  Poet  sees 
the  spirits  rising,  as  birds  from  a  meadow,  and  forming  the 
thirty-five  letters  of  Diligite  iustitiam  qui  iudicatis  terram. 
When  they  formed  the  last  letter  M,  the  centre  of  the  Latin 
alphabet,  they  halted  so  that  Jupiter  appeared  like  a  silver 
dish  pricked  out  with  golden  ornaments  (argento  11  d'oro 
distinto).  Then  the  bright  spirits  of  the  blessed  for  a  while  sepa- 
rated, like  the  sparks  when  a  firebrand  is  struck,  and  gradually 
formed  the  head  of  the  Eagle  of  Justice.1  As  the  bird  rises  he 
sings  in  the  one  voice  of  all  righteous  rulers  in  praise  of  God 
and  answers  the  difficulty  which  has  so  oppressed  the  Poet's 
mind,  why  the  good  heathen  who  know  not  Christ  cannot  be 
saved.  How  is  it  that  the  man  born  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus 
who  lives  virtuously,  and  is  ignorant  of  Christ,  because  no 
man  has  told  of  Him,  can  be  lost?  Dante  is  warned,  as  Job  was, 
that  he  as  a  man  cannot  question  God's  decrees.  But  the  Eagle 
as  it  wheels  around  sings  a  nobler  song.  No  one  who  knew  not 
Christ  can  ascend  to  this  realm,  but  many  who  called  not  on 
His  name  shall  be  far  nearer  to  Him  than  those  who  knew 
Him.2 

This  leads  to  a  bitter  denunciation  of  the  rulers  of  Europe 
in  Dante's  day.  First  Albert  of  Hapsburg  (d.  1308)  will  be 
condemned  for  the  invasion  of  Bohemia.  Then  Philip  the  Fair 
will  be  punished  for  debasing  the  coinage  and  will  die  by  the 
stroke  of  a  wild  boar.3  The  Judgment  will  reveal  the  pride  which 
is  inflaming  the  Englishman  and  his  Scottish  enemy  to  madness. 
The  Kings  of  Spain  and  Bohemia,  Charles  II  the  Lame,  the 
King  of  Jerusalem  (Ciotto  =  Zoppo  the  Lame),  Portugal,  and 
Norway  will  be  revealed  in  all  their  baseness.  A  hope  is  ex- 
pressed that  Hungary,  which  Kingdom  had  fallen  to  the  brother 

1  Paradiso,  XVIII,  70-108. 

2  Paradiso,  XIX,  70  ff. 

8  Philip  the  Fair  died  13 14  in  this  manner.  Is  his  wickedness  to  the  Templars  con- 
demned by  Dante? 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  373 

of  Charles  Martel,  may  see  war  no  more,  and  Navarre  is  warned 
of  the  danger  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  France  by  the  Queen 
Joanna's  marriage  with  Philip  the  Fair,  and  is  told  to  remember 
the  fate  of  Cyprus  under  the  French  regime  of  the  dynasty  of 
the  Lusignans.  Whether  the  Poet's  strictures  are  just  or  not, 
this  comprehensive  view  of  the  Europe  of  his  day  is  invaluable 
to  the  historian.1 

In  the  book  following,  the  eye  of  the  Eagle  is  explained. 
It  consists  of  five  great  rulers:  the  pupil  is  David;  those  who 
make  the  Arch  of  the  eyebrow  are  Trajan,  Hezekiah,  Constant- 
ine,  William  of  Sicily,  and  the  Trojan  Ripheus.2  Constantine 
is  saved,  though  he  caused  much  evil  by  his  donation  to  Pope 
Sylvester,  but  a  good  deed  even  if  it  ruins  the  world  is  not 
accounted  as  sin  to  him  who  does  it.  William  of  Sicily,  called 
''the  Good,"  was  the  last  of  the  house  of  Tancred  and  at  his 
death  in  1189,  his  kingdom  passed  to  Constance  and  the 
Hohenstaufens,  Trajan  and  Ripheus  are  present  among  the 
heathen  who  were  saved.  The  story  of  Trajan's  being  rescued 
from  Hell  by  the  prayers  of  Gregory  the  Great  was  a  favourite 
one  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Dante  explains  that  his  soul  was 
restored  to  his  body  at  the  prayer  of  the  Pope  and  issued  from 
thence  Christian,  trusting  in  the  pierced  feet  of  Christ.  To 
Ripheus  the  Passion  was  revealed  before  his  death,  and  he  was 
saved.  In  neither  was  the  law  that  in  Christ  alone  is  salvation 

broken.3 

The  rest  of  the  Paradiso,  valuable  as  it  is  for  its  poetry,  its 
theology  and  its  mysticism,  is  of  less  interest  as  an  historical 
guide.  Dante  passes  from  Jupiter  to  Saturn,  the  heaven  of 
the  contemplative  where  are  Benedict  of  Nursia,  Peter  Dami- 
ani,  Bernard,  and  thence  to  the  starry  Heaven,  the  abode  of 
the  Angels.  At  last  he  reaches  the  Highest  Heaven,  the  Em- 
pyrean, and  there  the  Beatific  Vision  is  vouchsafed  to  him. 

1  Paradiso,  XIX,  115  ad  fin. 

2  Virgil,  Mn.,  II,  426. 

cadit  et  Ripheus,  justissimus  unus 
qui  fuit  in  Tencris  et  servantissimus  aequi 
(dis  aliter  visum). 
8  Paradiso,  XX,  28-72. 


374  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

But  when  the  Church  Triumphant  is  revealed  to  the  Poet 
and  the  saints  are  seated  tier  upon  tier,forming  the  Eternal  Rose, 
there  is  a  seat  vacant  with  a  crown  above  it,  reserved  for  the 
Emperor  Henry  VII,  in  whom  all  the  hopes  of  those  who  loved 
Italy  were  centred.  These  were  to  be  thwarted  by  the  baseness 
of  Pope  Clement  V,  a  worthy  successor  to  Boniface  VIII.  Dante 
is  foretold  that  Henry  VII  will  fill  his  throne  in  heaven  and  that 
soon  afterwards  Clement  V  will  be  cast  into  the  pit  where  he 
will  force  his  predecessor  "him  of  Anagna,"  i.e.,  Boniface  VIII, 
to  even  lower  depths.  Henry  VII  died  in  August,  13 14,  and 
Clement  in  the  following  April.1 

Such,  then,  is  a  brief  survey  of  Dante's  great  poem,  which 
has  been  here  almost  confined  to  a  consideration  of  the  history 
of  the  period.  He  is  equally  an  idealist,  a  reformer,  and  a  poet. 
In  Heaven  he  paints  the  glories  of  the  future,  on  earth  he 
longs  for  those  of  the  past.  He  is  clear-sighted  enough  to  see 
that  the  Church  has  failed  to  bring  peace  on  earth,  Since  Con- 
stantine  made  Sylvester  rich,  she  has  been  blind  to  her  true 
destiny,  and  has  sought  worldly  power  and  wealth.  Instead  of 
the  Bride  of  the  Lamb  she  has,  in  Rome  at  least,  become  the 
Harlot  of  the  Apocalypse.  Her  ambition  has  been  the  cause 
of  the  unnumbered  woes  of  Italy. 

Dante  can  see  only  one  remedy.  His  hopes  did  not  lie  in 
the  spirit  of  independence  of  the  growing  Italian  republics:  he 
had  seen  and  suffered  too  much  in  Florence.  Nor  could  he 
cherish  a  hope  of  a  united  Italy;  for  the  day  of  national  as- 
piration had  not  yet  come.  If  the  Church  had  failed,  something 
as  Catholic  and  universal  must  take  her  place.  And  there  was 
nothing  conceivable  but  a  restored  Empire.  His  idea  was  that 
the  days  of  Charles  the  Great,  or  even  of  Augustus  should  re- 
turn, and  that  the  world  should  be  at  peace  under  a  single 
head.  In  a  sense  Dante  was  to  his  age  what  Gregory  VII  had 
been  to  an  earlier  time;  only  the  great  Pope  saw  the  Empire 
had  failed,  and  looked  with  hope  to  the  Church,  and  the  great 
Poet  that  the  Church  had  failed  and  turned  to  the  Empire. 
But  the  Empire  was  not  the  living  power  the  Church  had  been 

»  Paradiso,  XXX,  133-148- 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  375 

when  Gregory  VII  rallied  it  to  reform  the  world.  Henry  VII 
was  excellent  as  a  man,  but  he  lacked  the  opportunity  to  be- 
come a  great  Emperor.  Without  a  strong  hereditary  position 
in  Germany  an  Emperor  was  powerless,  and  Henry  of  Luxem- 
burg was  one  of  the  poorest  of  princes.  Nor  were  the  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  principalities  of  which  Germany  was  com- 
posed a  match  for  the  new  France,  which  was  being  consolidated 
by  the  unscrupulous  power  of  an  able  monarch.  Further 
Dante  could  not  recognise  the  undoubted  fact  that  no  German 
Caesar  could  really  rule  Italy  and  that  the  days  of  Charles 
the  Great  were  as  irrevocable  as  those  of  Augustus.  Great  as 
he  was,  Dante  was  a  dreamer  in  exile,  rather  than  a  leader  of 
men  in  a  crisis  of  history. 

Yet  genius,  whether  practical  or  not,  sees  the  truth  where 
other  men  cannot;  and  the  vision  of  Dante  was  one  of  the 
future.  He  paved  the  way  for  a  new  theory  of  government, 
and  was  the  pioneer  of  the  Renaissance.  In  his  day  and  for 
long  after  men  sought  not  liberty  but  authority.  They  desired 
someone  with  the  ability  and  the  right  to  silence  the  rivalries 
of  the  petty  powers  which  distracted  the  world.  It  was  this 
feeling  which  led  ultimately  to  the  formation  of  the  despotic 
monarchies  of  France  and  Spain  and  to  the  regime  of  the 
Tudors  in  England.  And  this  need  for  order,  even  at  the  price 
of  liberty,  turned  the  eyes  of  thinkers  to  the  palmy  days  of 
Roman  imperialism;  and  people  began  to  realise  that  in  the 
past  the  world  had  enjoyed  a  civilization  superior  to  anything 
of  which  they  had  any  experience.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that 
instead  of  regarding  antiquity  with  horror  as  an  age  of  idolatry, 
they  looked  back  to  it  as  an  ideal  time  when  the  world  had 
peace  under  the  majestic  shadow  of  the  Roman  law;  and  as 
they  read  the  story  of  early  Rome  and  Greece  they  found  men 
animated  by  a  civic  patriotism,  unknown  in  their  degenerate 
days.  It  was  instinctively  felt  that  the  secularized  church  of 
Rome,  now  degraded  by  the  fall  of  Boniface  VIII  and  the 
sordid  vices  of  Clement  V,  was  incapable  of  restoring  the 
virtues  of  the  ancients,  let  alone  of  leading  men  forward  to 
higher  things;  and  the  eyes  of  thoughtful  men  turned  to  the 


376  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Empire  for  guidance.  When  their  hopes  were  disappointed  by 
the  death  of  Henry  VII  they  were  driven  back  to  the  supposed 
golden  ages  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Dante's  dream  of  a  restored 
Empire  and  a  purified  .Church  free  from  secular  duties  was  the 
first  of  a  series  of  speculations  as  to  the  principles  of  human 
society  and  government. 

The  Divine  Comedy  has  been  called  "The  latest  book  of 
the  Middle  Ages."  In  it  they  had  reached  their  zenith,  and 
hereafter  their  true  spirit  was  dead.  It  is  therefore  desirable 
here  to  attempt  to  sum  up  the  results  of  the  structure  of  the 
civilization   erected  in  the   period   we  have   endeavoured  to 

describe. 

It  was  built  on  firmly  laid  foundations,  its  conception  was 
logical,  the  views  of  life  embodied  in  it  not  ignoble.  It  pro- 
duced a  piety  of  the  highest  type,  an  art  in  some  branches 
unsurpassed,  and  its  influence  upon  mankind  continues.  Yet, 
like  all  human  institutions,  it  matured,  only  to  decay,  to  make 
way  for  something  else.  Why  this  stately  fabric,  the  ruins  of 
which  still  inspire  our  respect,  collapsed,  it  is  now  necessary 
to  enquire. 

Medievalism  is  an  essentially  western  product.  In  the  East 
there  was  not  that  death  of  civilization  of  the  classical  world, 
out  of  which  this  conception  of  life  arose.  Greek  civilization 
was  antique  till  the  day  of  its  death.  It  had  undergone  no 
remodelling  under  the  influence  of  feudalism  and  the  Papacy, 
the  parents  of  western  civilization,  because  it  had  retained  so 
much  of  the  older  world  that  it  could  assimilate  little  that  was 
new.  It  is  not  by  chance  that  the  Eastern  Church  is  Orthodox 
and  the  Western  Catholic,  for  the  prime  object  of  orthodoxy 
is  to  retain,  and  of  Catholicity  to  acquire.  The  glory  of  the 
Eastern  Church  is  that  its  doctrine  is  unchangeable,  that  of 
the  West  that  it  adapts  itself  to  the  needs  of  humanity. 

Medieval  conceptions  were  founded  upon  religion  and  law. 
The  theory  of  life  at  least  was  profoundly  Christian.  Society 
was  regarded  as  an  homogeneous  entity,  every  member  of 
which  was  a  believer.  For  those  outside  the  Church  there  was 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  377 

no  place.  The  Jew,  for  example,  might  be  tolerated,  but  he  could 
not  possibly  become  a  member  of  the  commonwealth.  Even 
the  man  who  called  himself  a  Christian,  if  he  held  heretical 
views,  placed  himself  outside  the  community.  For  Christendom 
God  had  provided  two  rulers:  the  Pope  He  had  set  over  the 
Church  as  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  and  the  Emperor,  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  Caesar,  over  the  world.  The  Church  was  a  masterpiece 
of  organization  and  discipline,  and  the  Western  World  exhibited 
the  marvel  of  a  united  spiritual  body,  existing  in  the  midst  of 
countless  petty  but  independent  principalities.  Throughout 
Europe,  monastery  and  cathedral  towered  above  the  baronial 
and  even  the  royal  castle.  Around  these  triumphs  of  archi- 
tecture lay  the  crowded  hovels  and  narrow  streets  of  the  squalid 
city,  a  visible  token  of  the  entire  subordination  of  material 
to  religious  interests,  throughout  Europe.  Such,  moreover, 
was  the  cohesion  of  the  Church  that,  whereas  to  the  inhabit- 
ants of  most  cities  and  villages  some  petty  noble  was  of  in- 
finitely more  importance  than  King  or  Emperor,  the  Pope  was 
universally  acknowledged  as  the  superior  of  the  proudest 
prince  on  earth. 

The  humblest  priest  exercised  a  power  which  might  pro- 
voke the  envy  of  any  modern  ruler.  His  spiritual  prerogatives 
were  unquestioned.  He  could  call  down  Christ  from  Heaven,  and 
make  Him  to  be  present  among  the  people.  His  curse  could 
affect  the  eternal  future  of  those  on  whom  it  lighted,  his  bless- 
ing could  brighten  their  lives  and  rob  death  of  its  terrors. 
Even  if  he  were  not  a  good  man  he  was  still  invested  with 
tremendous  power  from  on  High. 

The  Church  was  also  the  repository  of  priceless  treasures. 
It  was  the  custodian  of  the  relics  of  the  saints,  wonder-working 
images,  sacred  wells,  whose  miraculous  waters  healed  the 
infirmities  of  the  believer.  Religion  was  not  simply  a  part  of 
man's  life;  it  pervaded  his  every  action.  The  Church  was 
necessary  to  him  in  all  he  undertook — he  could  neither  live 
nor  die  without  its  aid.  The  powers  of  evil  swarmed  around 
him;  and  but  for  the  Church,  the  saints,  the  angels,  he  might 
be  overwhelmed  at  any  moment.  Nor  did  the  Church  appeal 


378  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

only  to  his  superstitious  imagination.  Almost  every  church  was 
a  veritable  picture  book;  on  wall  and  window  were  depicted 
the  most  important  scenes,  whether  from  the  Bible  or  from  the 
legends  of  the  saints.  Every  child  was  taught  simple  prayers, 
the  confessional  itself  was  an  educative  influence  in  bringing 
people  into  direct  contact  with  their  spiritual  advisers.  Nor  is 
it  right  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  bitter  criticism  of  the 
Church  by  the  best  men  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Scandals  there 
were,  and  very  serious  ones,  but  even  when  these  are  fully 
admitted,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  no  devout  Christian 
has  ever  admired  the  Church  of  his  own  day.  For  the  Church 
is  always  to  her  truest  sons  an  ideal;  and  the  devout  exaggerate 
rather  than  minimize  the  falling  short  of  it,  which  they  witness 
around  them.  The  faults  of  the  rulers  of  the  medieval  Church 
were  those  of  the  strong,  not  of  the  weak.  They  were  unchristian, 
in  that  they  were  arrogant,  rapacious,  and  domineering;  but 
as    men    conscious    of   power    and    accustomed    to    authority 
they  were  not  obsequious,  nor  hypocritically  humble.  Their 
position  was  unassailable  because  it  was  based  on  the  rights 
of  the  Church,  which  no  one  presumed  to  dispute. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  learning  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
entirely  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  Church.  Unlike  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  East,  which  prided  itself  in  resting  on  the  past 
and  in  finding  completion  in  the  decrees  of  the  Seven  General 
Councils,  Western  religion  was  adventurous  and  progressive. 
In  the  eighth  century  John  of  Damascus  was  setting  his  seal 
upon  the  doctrine  of  the  East;  but  within  a  century  the  more 
daring  speculators  of  the  West  were  seeking  to  fathom  the 
theories  of  Augustine  about  predestination,  and  to  define  the 
meaning  of  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  sacrament.   Later 
Anselm  was  daring  to  question  the  accepted  explanation  of 
the  Atonement,  and  Abelard  was  setting  Europe  aflame  by 
his  speculations  into  the  infinite.  Thus  arose  medieval  scholas- 
ticism, with  its  combination  of  theology,  logic,  and  philosophy, 
which  produced  an  education,   arid  and  narrow  indeed,  but 
excellently  adapted  to  train  the  mind  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
acuteness.  Towards  the  close  of  our  period  Thomas  Aquinas 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  379 

formulated   the  theory   of  the   Church   with    answers   to   all 
possible  objections  to  the  Faith. 

The  question  now  arises,  how  was  it  that  a  civilization  so 
logical,  so  consistent,  and  at  the  same  time  so  idealistic  and 
essentially  Christian  collapsed?  A  few  of  the  causes  are  here 
suggested. 

The  great  difference  between  modern  and  medieval 
Christianity  is  that  in  theory  at  least  the  religion  of  the  middle 
ages  was  uncompromising  in  its  demands.  It  was  grounded 
on  the  monastic  idea  of  absolute  surrender  of  all  things  for 
God.  The  culmination  of  a  holy  life  was  the  withdrawal  into 
absolute  seclusion  and  divesting  oneself  of  all  worldly  cares  and 
thoughts.  The  triumph  of  the  hierarchy  under  Gregory  VII 
was  that  of  the  sternest  monastic  ideal  which  found  expression 
in  St.  Peter  Damiani.  In  the  twelfth  century  monasteries 
sprang  up  on  all  sides,  especially  in  England  and  France,  but 
every  generation  saw  fewer  founded.  In  place  men  built 
Friaries  and  Colleges,  and  endowed  chantries.  By  the  days  of 
Dante  the  enthusiasm  for  monastic  life  had  gone.  As  long  as 
it  was  ardent,  new  orders  were  founded  to  amend  the  defects 
of  the  older  ones.  Nothing  of  the  kind  marks  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  abbots  and  monks  of  all  orders  beautified 
their  churches,  but  none  went  forth  to  seek  a  stricter  life  than 
that  of  the  old  monastery.  With  the  disappearance  of  the 
passion  for  asceticism,  there  arose  an  enthusiasm  for  learning, 
and  a  desire  for  the  amenities  of  life.  In  the  thirteenth  century 
the  stern  crusading  fanatics  of  the  Albigensian  war  had  crushed 
the  gaiety  of  Languedoc  with  an  iron  hand.  In  the  fourteenth, 
the  desire  of  life  was  blossoming  in  the  papal  court  at  Avignon. 
In  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Dante  the  medieval  ideals  had  been 
seen  in  all  their  severe  logic  and  beauty;  in  Occam  and  Petrarch 
new  theories  of  life  were  appearing  under  scholastic  and  poetic 
forms. 

With  the  monastic  ideal  the  spirit  of  true  medievalism 
disappeared.  The  Friars  proved  that  devout  men  might  shew 
a  better  piety  in  activity  and  usefulness  than  in  seclusion  and 
self-absorption;  the  first  humanists  reminded  men  once  more 


380  INTRODUCTION  TO  HISTORY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

that  the  life  could  be  beautiful  and  happy,  and  yet  Christian. 
But  medievalism  died  when  it  ceased  to  produce  saints  of 
the  monastic  type. 

That  such  an  institution  as  the  Papacy  should  have  at- 
tained the  immense  influence  it  did  in  Western  Europe  cannot 
be  explained  as  due  either  to  the  fraudulence  of  successive 
popes,  or  to  the  ignorance  of  mankind.  To  attain  to  a  position 
of  such  influence  as  it  did  in  the  Middle  Ages,  it  must  not  only 
have  possessed  great  inherent  vigour,  but  also  have  satisfied 
an  urgent  demand.  The  early  medieval  popes  after  the  great 
reform  in  the  eleventh  century  were  for  the  most  part  men  of 
piety  and  ability,  and  governed  on  the  whole  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Church.  They  seem  to  have  reached  the  culminating 
point  of  usefulness  in  Innocent  III  (1198-1216),  after  whom 
a  steady  degeneracy  in  moral  aims  set  in.  The  removal  of  the 
seat  of  their  government  to  Avignon  weakened  their  influence, 
and  the  long  schism  with  its  attendant  scandals  still  further 
impaired  the  respect  in  which  the  office  had  been  held. 

The  Papacy  defeated  the  Emperor,  the  acknowledged  secular 
head  of  the  West,  but  was  itself  humbled  by  the  kings  of 
Europe.  The  decay  of  feudalism  is  about  contemporary  with 
that  of  monasticism,  and,  in  both,  the  institutions  survived 
their  vitality.  Nations  gradually  realised  their  distinctness  and 
their  unity.  England,  perhaps,  took  the  lead;  but  in  France 
the  unification  of  the  nation  under  a  king,  who  was  constantly 
becoming  more  absolute  with  every  generation,  the  effect  on 
the  Church  was  even  more  evident.  In  Philip  the  Fair  the 
Pope  found  a  master,  and  the  superiority  of  the  united  kingdom 
of  France  to  the  Empire,  split  up  into  countless  principalities, 
is  demonstrated  by  the  way  in  which  the  French  Kings  defied 
the  thunderbolts  of  papal  excommunication,  which  had  been 
so  fatal  in  Germany.  With  the  growth  of  national  unity  there 
sprang  up  the  idea  of  national  churches,  and  the  notion  of  a 
king  with  a  divine  right  opposed  to  the  divine  right  of  the 
Pope  was  slowly  formed.  The  City  of  God  embracing  the  Chris- 
tian world  was  making  way  for  a  number  of  Israels,  each  ruled 
by  its  own  successor  of  David.  Thus  modern  Europe  with  its 


DANTE  AND  THE  DECAY  OF  MEDIEVALISM  3Sl 

nationalism  began  to  come  into  being  in  opposition  to  the  old 
unified  world  of  Christendom  which  was  the  ideal  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

AUTHORITIES 

The  study  of  Dante  is  one  which  demands  almost  a  lifetime,  and  here  only 
a  preliminary  course  of  reading  can  be  indicated.  As  a  preliminary  I  recom- 
mend R  W.  Church's  Dante  and  other  Essays;  J.  A.  Symonds,  The  Study  of 
Dante-  C.  H.  Grandgent,  Dante  (Master  Spirits  of  Literature);  Edmund  G. 
Gardner,  Dante  and  the  Mystics;  Bishop  Boyd-Carpenter,  The  Spiritual 
Message  of  Dante;  W.  W.  Vernon,  Readings  on  the  Inferno;  Readings  on  the 
Purgatorio;  Readings  on  the  Paradiso;  in  all  six  volumes.  _ 

Translations  of  The  Divine  Comedy  are  numerous.  To  mention  only  a  tew, 
there  are  Longfellow,  Norton,  Cary,  J.  A.  Carlyle  (Inferno  only).  All  the 
works  of  Dante  in  Italian  are  in  a  convenient  volume  edited  by  Dr.  L.  Moore. 
The  De  Monarchia  is  translated  by  Aurelia  Henry,  the  New  Life  by  G.  iL. 
Norton,  and  the  Banquet  by  Katharine  Hillard.  The  edition  of  the  Divine 
Comedy  used  by  me  is  that  of  P.  H.  Wicksteed  in  the  Italian,  with  an  English 
version  on  the  opposite  page.  For  the  History  of  Florence  the  English  trans- 
lation by  Wicksteed  of  Villani's  Chronicle  should  be  consulted. 


IMPORTANT  POPES 

590-604.  S.  Gregory  I.  Famous  for  (1)  his  admin- 
istration of  the  Papacy  and  its  estates;  (2)  his 
mission  to  England;  (3)  his  dealings  with  the 
Lombards;  (4)  his  controversy  with  Constanti- 
nople. 

625-638.  Honorius  I.  (1)  Sent  Birinus  to  Wessex 
in  England;  (2)  took  part  in  the  Monothelite 
controversy,  and  was  accused  of  weakness. 

649-655.  S.  Martin  I.  Exiled  to  the  Crimea,  where 
he  died  a  martyr. 

657-672.  S.  Vitalian.  (1)  Visit  of  Constans  II  to 
Rome;  (2)  sent  Theodore  of  Tarsus  as  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury. 

678-681.  S.  Agatho.  (i)  Appealed  to  by  S.  Wilfrid, 
Archbishop  of  York;  (2)  Sixth  General  Council 
condemned  Monothelites  at  Constantinople. 

708-715.  Constantine.  (i)  Visited  Constantinople; 

(2)  Council  in  Trullo  (Quinisext)  held  during  his 
pontificate  in  Constantinople;  (3)  made  peace 
with  East. 

715-731.  S.  Gregory  II.  (1)  Sent  missionaries  to 
Bavaria  and  Germany;  (2)  consecrated  St.  Boni- 
face (Winfred  of  Crediton  in  England)  a  bishop; 

(3)  supported  Empire  against  Lombards;  (4)  op- 
posed Iconoclasm. 

731-741.  S.  Gregory  III.  (1)  Opposed  Iconoclasm; 
(2)  summoned  Charles  Martel  to  aid  him  against 
Lombards. 

741-752.  S.  Zacharias.  (i)  Obtains  cities  from  the 
Lombard  king  Luitprand;  (2)  Merovingian  dy- 
nasty ends:  Pippin  consecrated  King  of  the 
Franks. 

752-755.  S.  Stephen  III.  (1)  Crossed  the  Alps  to  seek 
aid  against  the  Lombards;  (2)  agreement  with 
Pippin  at  Kiersy;  (3)  crowned  Pippin;  (4)  Dona- 
tion of  Pippin  to  the  Papacy;  (5)  letter  in  name 
of  St.  Peter  written  to  Pippin. 

382 


Emperors  or  Kings 
of  the  Romans 

Maurice 

and 
Phocas 


Heraclius 


Constans  II 

Constans  II 

(d.  668) 

Constantine  IV 

Constantine  IV 


Justinian  II 
(d.  7") 


Leo  III 
(the  Isaurian) 


Leo  III 


Constantine  V 
(Copronymus) 


Constantine  V 


IMPORTANT  POPES 


383 


772-795.  Hadrian  I.  The  great  friend  and  supporter 
of  Charles  the  Great.  End  of  the  Lombard  king- 
dom of  Italy. 

795-816.  S.  Leo  III.  Crowned  Charles  the  Great 
St.  Peter's  on  Christmas  Day,  800,  the  Empire 
being  declared  vacant  by  the  usurpation  of 
Irene. 

847-855.  S.  Leo  IV.  Saracens  advanced  on  Rome  and 
sacked  St.  Peter's.  Leo  fortified  city  and  sur- 
rounded the  Vatican  (henceforward  known  as 
the  "Leonine  City")  with  a  wall. 

858-867.  S.  Nicholas  I.  The  great  assertor  of  Papal 
supremacy  in  (1)  the  Photian  Controversy;  (2) 
the  affair  of  Hincmar,  Archbishop  of  Reims;  (3) 
upholding  the  rights  of  the  injured  wife  of  Lothar 
II  of  Lorraine.  False  Decretals  first  heard  of. 

891-896.  Formosus,  Bishop  of  Porto.  Sent  to  Bul- 
garia. After  his  death  solemnly  deposed  for  hav- 
ing as  a  bishop  intruded  himself  into  the  See  of 
Rome.  Subsequently  restored  and  honourably 
buried. 

955-964.  John  XII.  Of  the  family  of  the  Counts  of 
Tusculum,  notorious  for  his  infamous  character. 

996-999.  Gregory  V.    A   German   cousin   of  the 
Emperor;  usurpation  of  Crescentius  in  Rome  put 
down. 
999-1003.   Sylvester  II.   Gerbert,   Archbishop  of 
Reims,  and  then  of  Ravenna;  one  of  the  most 
famous  scholars  of  his  age. 
1045-1046.  Gregory  VI.  Friend  of  Hildebrand.  Said 
to  have  bought  the  Papacy  to  save  it  from  his 
predecessor.  Exiled  by  the  Emperor.  At  death, 
owing  to  a  miracle,  was  buried  as  a  pope. 
1046-1047.  Clement  II.  Suidger,  Bishop  of  Bamberg, 
a  German  appointed  by  the  Emperor  to  reform 
the  Church. 
1049-1054.  S.  Leo  IX.  Bruno,  Bishop  of  Toul,  related 
to  the  Emperor;  (1)  began  to  attack  clerical  mat- 
rimony;   (2)    crossed    the    Alps     to    reform    the 
Church;    (3)  schism  with  the  East;   (4)   defeated 
by  the  Normans  of  Sicily. 


Emperors  or  Kings 
of  the  Romans 

Leo  IV 

CONSTANTINE  VI 
(E)  CONSTANTINE  VI 

Irene 
(W)  Charles  the 
Great 

Lothar  I 


Lewis  II 

(in  Italy) 

(E)  Michael 

(the  Drunkard) 

Guido 
(in  Italy) 
Lambert 
(in  Italy) 

Otho  I 


Otho  III 
Otho  III 
Henry  III 

Henry  III 


(W)  Henry  III 

(E)  CONSTANTINE 

VIII 


384 


IMPORTANT  POPES 


Emperors  or  Kings 
of  the  Romans 

♦Henry  IV 
(during  his  minority) 

*Henry  IV 

(during  his 

minority) 

♦Henry  IV 
♦Henry  IV 


1057-1058.  Stephen  X.  Frederic  of  Lorraine.  Made 
S.  Peter  Damiani  a  Cardinal. 

1 059-1061.  Nicholas  II.  Held  the  second  council  of  the 
Lateran,  at  which  the  election  to  the  Papacy  was 
restricted  to  the  Cardinals  of  Rome. 

1061-1073.  Alexander  II.  Sanctioned  the  Norman 
conquest  of  England. 

1073-1085.  S.  Gregory  VII.  The  great  struggle  about 
Investiture;  the  Emperor  goes  to  Canossa.  Sack 
of  Rome  by  Guiscard  and  the  Normans. 

1088-1099.  Urban  II.  A  French  Pope.  The  Crusades 
preached.  The  expeditions  to  the  Holy  Land  in- 
augurated by  the  Councils  of  Piacenza  and  Cler- 
mont. 

1099-1118.  Paschal  II.  (1)  Excommunicated  Henry 
IV,  who  died  unabsolved;  (2)  quarrelled  with 
Henry  V;  (3)  came  to  agreement  on  Investitures 
with  Henry  I  of  England. 

1119-1124.  Calixtus  II.  (1)  Concordat  of  Worms 
with  Emperor,  settling  investiture  dispute;  (2) 
First  Council  of  the  Lateran. 

1130-1143.  Innocent  II.  (1)  Disputed  election  be- 
tween him  and  Anacletus  II  (Pierleone).  In 
France  Innocent  II  was  strongly  supported  by 
St.  Bernard;  (2)  the  Tenth  General  Council, 
Second  of  the  Lateran. 

1145-1153.  B.  Eugenius  III.  A  Cistercian  monk  and 
a  friend  of  St.  Bernard.  Dealt  wisely  with  popular 
seditions  in  Rome. 

1154-1159.  Hadrian  IV.  An  Englishman;  (1)  crowned 
Frederic  I;  (2)  laid  Rome  under  an  interdict;  (3) 
Arnold  of  Brescia  executed. 

1159-1181.  Alexander  III.  (1)  Mediated  between 
Henry  II  of  England  and  Becket;  (2)  supported 
the  Lombard  League  against  Emperor. 

1198-1216.  Innocent  III.  One  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Popes;  (1)  capture  of  Constantinople  by  Latins; 
(2)  Albigensian  crusade;  (3)  General  Council  of 
the  Lateran;  confession  made  obligatory. 

*  Henry  IV.  was  never  Emperor,  having  been  crowned  by  an  Anti-pope. 


♦(W)  Henry  IV 
(E)  Alexius 

COMNENUS 

Henry  IV 

(d.  1 106) 
Henry  V 

Henry  V 


Lothar  II 

Conrad  III 

King  of  the  Romans 


Conrad  III 
King  of  the  Romans 

Frederic  I 
(Barbarossa) 

Frederic  I 


Otho  IV 


IMPORTANT  POPES 


385 


1216-1227.  Honorius  III.  Orders  of  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans. 

1227-1241.  Gregory  IX.  (1)  Canon  Law  codified; 
(2)  Inquisition  sanctioned;  (3)  Frederic  II  twice 
excommunicated. 

1243-1254.  Innocent  IV.  (1)  Bitter  quarrel  with  Em- 
peror Frederic  II  (d.  1250);  (2)  Papal  exactions 
in  England;  (3)  first  General  Council  of  Lyons. 

1261-1264.  Urban  IV.  A  Frenchman.  Gave  crown  of 
Sicily  to  Charles  of  Valois. 

1271-1276.  B.  Gregory  X.  (1)  Recognised  Rudolph 
of  Hapsburg  in  Germany;  (2)  second  General 
Council  of  Lyons;  the  Conclave  established. 

1 294-1 294.  S.  Celestine  V.  The  Hermit,  Peter  Mur- 
rone,  decreed  that  a  Pope  might  abdicate.  Ac- 
cording to  Dante  made  "the  great  refusal." 

1294-1303.  Boniface  VIII.  (1)  Jubilee  at  Rome;  (2) 
issued    the    Bull    Clericis    Laicos;    (3)    brutally 
treated  by  the  emissaries  of  Philip  the  Fair,  of 
France. 

1305-13 14.  Clement  V.  (1)  Transferred  Papal  court 
to  Avignon;  (2)  sanctioned  the  suppression  of  the 
Knights  Templar. 


Emperors  or  Kings 
of  the  Romans 

Frederic  II 


Frederic  II 


Frederic  II 
Conrad  IV 

Interregnum 

Rudolph  I 

(of  Hapsburg) 

King  of  the  Romans 

Adolph 

(of  Nassau) 
King  of  the  Romans 

Albert  I 

(of  Hapsburg) 

King  of  the  Romans 

Albert  Henry  VII 

(of  Luxemburg) 

1308-13 13 


INDEX 

[The  Chapter  headings  and  Authorities  at  the  end  of  each  chapter  are  not  inserted  in 

this  index.} 


Abelard,  179,  231,  238,  280,  346,  378. 
Adoptianism,  77,  184  f. 
Albertus  Magnus,  233,  370. 
Albigenses,  207,  208,  213. 
Alcuin,  52,  99,  174,  300. 
Alexander  of  Hales,  231. 
Alexandria,  Patriarch  of,  10. 
Ambrose,  3,  38,  95,  129  f. 
Anselm,  175,  313  ff.,  378. 
Antioch,  Patriarch  of,  10. 
Anti-popes,  52,  81,  82,  128,  132,  140,  281. 
Aquinas,  237  f.,  346,  370,  378. 
Aristotle,  2,  173,  176  f.,  229  f.,  233,  257. 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  181,  191,  250. 
Art,  Christian,  2,  35  ff.,  104,  336,  345  f.,378. 
Asceticism,  5,  118  f.,  187,  189,  207. 
Athanasius,  6. 

Augustine,  of  Canterbury,  20  f.,  97. 
Augustine,  of  Hippo,  3,  15,  129  f.,  173,  191, 
207,  378. 

Bacon,  Roger,  230,  235,  328. 
Baptism,  23,  173,  189,  197. 
Barbarians,  3,  9,  13,  14,  19,  63,  79. 
Basil  of  Caesarea,  6,  77,  217. 
Becket,  215  f.,  240,  275,  282,  306  ff. 
Benedict,  of  Nursia,  7  f.,  16,  117,  373. 
Berengar,  130,  136,  173,  174  f. 
Bernard,  181  f.,  188,  189  f.,  280,  281,  326, 

373- 
Boethius,  4,  173,  177,  178,  370. 
Bonaventure,  227  f.,  231  f.,  287,  371. 
Boniface  (Winifred),  38,  46,  93  f.,  300. 
Breviary,  7. 

Bulgarians,  66,  79,  104  f.,  125,  186. 
Byzantium,  see  Constantinople. 

Canon  Law,  63,  76,  173,  204,  236,  239. 

Canon  of  the  Mass,  24  f.,  76,  350. 

Canossa,  134,  139. 

Cardinals,  no  ff.,  231,  260,  288. 

Cassian,  6. 

Cathedrals,  2,  93, 113, 172, 319 ff,  337,345, 

.377- 
Celibacy,  9,  14,  126,  131  f.,  138,  348. 
Charles  Martel,  35,  45,  47,  146,  369. 
Charles  of  Anjou,  163,  263  ff.,  270,  285, 
290  f. 

3 


Charles  the  Great,   see  Emperors  of  the 

West. 
Civil  Law,  76,  202  ff.,  232,  239,  341  f. 
Clovis,  44. 
Colonna  family. 

Confession,  201,  202  f.,  350,  378. 
Constance,  Empress,  253  ff.,  368. 
Constantine  the  Great,  3,  40  ff. 
Constantine  the  Great,  Donation  of,  41  ff, 

363. 
Constantinople,  2,  n,  14,  19,  34,  35»  43. 

44,  66,  124  ff.,  148,  150,  154,  159.  i6l» 

177,  179,  288. 
Coronation  of  Emperors,  53,  59,  246,  250, 

256,  358. 
Council,  fourth  Lateran,  193,  202. 
Council  of  Lyons,  288. 
Courts,  Christian,  203  ff.,  308. 
Crusades,  141,  257  f.,  Chapter  VI  passim. 

Dante,  Chapter  XIV  passim. 
Decretals,  false,  73  ff. 
Dialogues  of  Gregory  the  Great,  16. 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  173,  370. 
Dominic,  161,  192,  208,  209,  228,  229,  234, 

37?- 
Dominicans,  168,  208,  210,  216,  224,  226, 

228  f.,  230,  234,  371. 
Donation  of  Charles,  50. 
Donation  of  Constantine,  41  ff,  363. 
Donation  of  Pippin,  48,  50,  246. 
Duns  Scotus,  234. 

Edessa,  capture  of,  154. 

Education,  65,  84,  172  ff.,  229,  237,  321, 

347- 
Egypt,  6,  11,  32,  145,  151,  155  t.,  162,  165, 

167,  221,  258. 
Elias,  Brother,  227  f. 
Emperors  in  the  East: 

Alexius  Comnenus,  150,  155. 

Alexius  III,  159. 

Basil  II,  124  f.,  147. 

Constans  II,  33  f. 

Constantine  VIII,  148. 

Constantine  IX,  125,  127,  148. 

Heraclius,  33. 

John  the  Handsome,  155. 

87 


388 


INDEX 


Manuel,  155,  160. 
Michael  III,  68  ff.,  105. 
Michael  VIII,  161,  288. 
Zeno,  32. 
Emperors  in  the  West: 
Albert,  372. 
Charles  the  Great,  49  ff.,  53, 59  f.,  91, 99, 

148,  246,  268. 
Conrad  II  (the  Salic),  119,  131,  136. 
Frederic  I  (Barbarossa),  90,   156,   182, 

239,  248  f.,  250  f.,  253,  357. 
Frederic  II,  161   f.,  163,  210,  218,  254, 

256,  257  ff.,  285,  361,  366. 
Henry  II  (St.),  119. 
Henry  III,  119,  120  f.,  123,  128. 
Henry  IV,   128,   132,  135,  137  f.,   142, 

149. 
Henry  V,  142. 
Henry  VI,  157  f.,  253  ff. 
Henry  VII,  357  ff.,  371,  374  f. 
Louis  the  Pious,  58  f.,  117. 
Otto  I,  80,  81,  101. 
Otto  II,  80. 

Otto  III,  80,  81,  82,  105. 
Otto  IV,  255. 
Empire,  Holy  Roman,  Chapters    II,    III, 

IV,  X,  p.  357- 
Empire  of  the  Church,  Chapters    II,    III, 

IV. 
England,  Kings  of: 

Edward  I,  166,  172,  287,  316  ff.,  322  ff., 

365- 

Henry  I,  274,  302  ff. 

Henry  II,  240,  253,  276,  282,  324,  326  f. 

Henry  III,  241,  262,  264,  271,  279,  315, 
322,  365. 

John,  218,  276  f.,  282,  313,  315,  322. 

William  I,  133,  191,  301  ff. 

William  II,  303  ff. 
Eriugena,  77,  130,  300. 
Eucharist,  23,  76,  77,   126,   129  ff,   174, 

199  f-,  349  f- 
Eutychians,  31,  37 
Excommunication,  139,  162,  199  f.,   217, 

248,  251,  259,  270. 

Feudalism,  61,  65,  303,  316,  329  ff. 
Filioque,  insertion  of,  70,  77,  126,  288. 
France,  Chapter  XI. 
France,  Kings  of: 

Louis  VI,  60,  274  f.,  277,  297. 

Louis  VII,  154,  274  f.,  277. 

Louis  IX  (St.),  163,    168,   248,    263   f., 

286,  310. 
Philip  Augustus,  92,  138,  156,  192,  218, 

256,  273  ff.,284,  314. 
Philip  the  Fair,  293  ff. 
Francis,  St.,  161,  168,  220  ff.,  271,  370. 
Franciscans,  168  f.,  170,  221  ff,  230,  234, 
37i- 


Franks,  44  ff,  50,  52,  58  ff.,  72,  78,  148, 

153,  163,  246. 
French  and  Germans  contrasted,  60  f.,  267. 


Gerhert,  see  Sylvester  II. 

German  influence,  79  ff.,    104,     119,     135, 

136,  158,  165,  246,  252,  269,  Chapter 

X. 
German  people,  3,  58  ff.,  94,  106,  123,  137, 

245,  248  f.,  252,  268  f.,  Chapter  X. 
Gnosticism,  5,  187,  207. 
Greek  language,  15,  24,  101  f.,  173  f. 
Guelfs  and  Ghibellines,  247,  271,  290,  369, 

Chapter  X. 

Hakim,  Sultan  of  Egypt,  147. 

Heresy,  11,  31  ff,  77,  91,  173,  191,  206  f , 

212  f.,  259,351 
Heribert  of  Milan,  131,  336  f. 
Hildebrand,  see  Gregory  VII. 
Hincmar,  Archbishop  of  Reims,  72. 
Hohenstaufen,  House  of,  157,  Chapter  X. 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  see  Empire. 

Iconoclasm,  36  ff.,  47,  50. 
Ignatius,  Patriarch,  68  ff. 
Inquisition,  207  ff.,  210  f. 
Inquisition,  estimate  of,  214  f.,  300. 
Interdict,  216  ff.,  248,  314. 
Investiture,  142,  305  ff.,  Chapter  V  passim. 
Ireland,  74,  324  ff. 

Islam,  29,  30,  34, 79,  145  ff,  155,  165, 168  f., 
185,  188. 

Jerusalem,  30,  162,  218,  see  Patriarchates. 

Jerusalem,  Kingdom  of,  150  ff. 

Jews,  102,  no,  146,  147,  150,  214,  342. 

Joachim  of  Flore,  226  f. 

John  of  Salisbury,  237,  251,  258,  280. 

Knights,  Hospitallers,  153. 

Knights  Templar,  153,  156,  157,  162,  166, 

170,  295  ff. 
Knights,  Teutonic,  157,  162,  258,  270. 

Lanfranc,  301  ff.,  313. 
Langton,  Stephen,  Archbishop. 
Languedoc,  188,  190  f.,  193,  271. 
Latin  Christianity  in  East,  107,  153  ff. 
Latin  language,  75   f.,  84,  104,  178,  301, 

347- 
Learning,  63,  84,  229,  237,  347,  378  f. 
Legates,  98,  114,  127,  191. 
Leo  the  Isaurian,  34,  37,  39,  147. 
Literature,    Christian,   78,   84,    166,    174, 

237,  284. 
Lombards,  39,  44,  46,  48  ff,  95,  131,  246, 

345- 
London,  97,  100,  218,  334,  338. 
Lothar,  King  of  Lorraine,  Marriage  of,  71  f. 


INDEX 


389 


Marcion,  184  ff. 

Marriage  of  clergy,  121  f.,  132, 137  f.,  143, 
248. 

Martyrs,  5,  10,  II,  13,  108,  199. 

Matilda  of  Tuscany,  134,  I38,  H°  f-»  247> 
336. 

Michael  Cerularius,  125  ff. 

Milan,  95,  125,  131  f.,  259,  336,  357. 

Missions  to  heathen,  8,  21,  29  f.,  87,  93  i., 
99  ff.,  166,  168  f. 

Mohammedanism,  29  f.,  Chapter  VI  pas- 
sim. 

Monasticism,  4,  6  ff.,  57,  64,  116  ff.,  279  f., 

379  f- 
Mongols,  162,  166  f.,  169. 
Monophysites,  29,  31  ff.,  37,  153,  185,  369- 
Monothelites,  29,  53,  77. 

Nestorians,  8,  31,  37,  153,  166,  169. 

Nominalism,  176  f. 

Normans,  123  f.,  125,  133  f,  147,  *58,  247- 

Orthodox  and  Catholic  contrasted,  376. 
Ostrogoths,  13  f.,  263. 

Pallium,  19,  93»  97,  98,  109  f.,  113,  305  f- 
Papacy,  47,    380,    Chapters    II,    IV,    V 

passim. 
Papacy,   Temporal    Power   of,    132,    143, 

Chapters  IV,  X. 
Papal  States,  40,  43,  46,  50,  140,  247,  255, 

259,  Chapter  IV. 
Paris,  179,  227,  231,  237,  239 ff.,  279  f.,  283, 

297. 
Patarines,  132. 

Patriarchates,  10,  42,  64,  107  f.,  126  f.,  287. 
Alexandria,  10,  12,  20,  31,  32,  126. 
Antioch,  10,  12,  20,  31,  126. 
Constantinople,  11,  19  f.,  32>  38,  39,  53, ' 

67  ff.,  101,  127,  158  f. 
Jerusalem,  10  f.,  126,  153. 
Rome,  11  ff.,  33,  67  f.,  70,  73,  101,  108  f. 
Paulicians,  185  f. 
Paul  of  Samosata,  184,  186. 
Paul,  St.,  12,  90,  108,  183  f.,  185,  197,  203. 
Penance,  198  ff. 

Persecution,  2,  II,  62,  108,  193,  207  ff. 
Persia,  29,  30,  145,  166. 
Peter  Damiani,  116,  118  f.,  120,  124,  128, 

132,  141,  191,  35i>  373.  379- 
Peter,  St.,  12,  17,  18,  20,  108. 
Peter  the  Deacon,  16,  29. 
Photius,  69  ff.,  124  f.,  126. 
Pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  148. 
Pippin,  17,  246. 

Pippin,  Donation  of,  48,  50,  246. 
Plato,  176,  357. 
Popes: 

Alexander  II,  11,  132,  133,  135. 
Alexander  III,  301,  302. 


Benedict  III,  68. 

Benedict  IX,  82  f.,  119,  120. 

Boniface  III,  29. 

Boniface  IV,  29. 

Boniface VIII,  266,  269,  285,  290,  291  ff, 

317  f->  350  f-,  359,  362,  367,  374- 
CalixtusII,  141. 
Calixtus  III,  142. 
Celestine  III,  254. 
Celestine  V,  359. 
Clement  II,  119. 
Clement  III,  156. 
Clement  IV,  235,  264  f. 
Clement  V,  295  ff.,  357  f-,  362,  374- 
Damasus,  13. 
Eugenius  III,  190,  249. 
Formosus,  79. 
Gregory  I  (the  Great),  4,  8,  13,  14  ff, 

22,  33,  89,  97,  299,  373. 
Gregory  II,  11,  34,  38  ff- 
Gregory  III,  46,  47. 
Gregory  V,  84. 
Gregory  VII  (Hildebrand),  83,  119  ff, 

128  ff.,  132  f.,  135  ff,  141,  143,  H9, 

254,  302,  374  f,  379- 
Gregory  IX,  162,  210,  224,  227,  257  ft. 
Gregory  X,  287  ff. 
Hadrian  I,  47,  51  f. 
Hadrian  II,  72,  103. 
Hadrian  IV,  99,  182,  249  ff.,  326,  366. 
Honorius  I,  29  f. 
Honorius  III,  256  f. 
Innocent  II,  182,  281. 
Innocent  III,  158,  159,  161,  191,   193, 

223,    253,  254  ff.,  270,    276,  312  ff., 

322,  380. 
Innocent  IV,  168,  260  ff.,  270. 
John  VIII,  104. 
John  XII,  80  f. 
John  XIII,  81. 

Leo  I  (the  Great),  21,  22,  32,  41,  201. 
Leo  III,  52,  S3  f.,  59- 
Martin  IV,  290. 
Nicholas  I  (the  Great),  67,  70. 
Nicholas  III,  362. 
Stephen  II,  48  f. 
Stephen  VI,  79. 
Stephen  IX,  138. 

Sylvester  II  (Gerbert),  82,  105,  177. 
Urban  II,  141,  142,  15°,  28x,  3°5  f- 
Zacharias,  47,  48,  80. 

Ravenna,  19,  20  f.,  28,  39,  48,  50,  95,  351. 

Realism,  176  f. 

Reformation,  the,  269,  271. 

Relics,  17  f.,  36,  159,  i85,  347,  377- 

Robert  Guiscard,  123,  141. 

Roman  people,  their  hatred  of  Germans, 

81,  119,  245  {•,  252,  267- 
Romans,  Kings  of,  135,  256,  260,  286  t. 


39° 


INDEX 


Rome: 

a  sacred  city,  II,  12,  14,  83,  108. 

beautified,  30. 

climate  of,  246,  252. 

deserted,  13. 

dread  of  secular  powers,  84  f.,  246  fF., 

258,263. 
Patriarchate  of,  see  Patriarchates, 
pilgrimage  to,  14,  83,  292. 
regions  of  Rome,  23  f.,  107,  no  f. 
sacked,  141,  335. 
taken  by  barbarians,  252,  371. 
temporal  power,  40  fF.,  46,    51,   95    f., 

245  f. 

Saladin,  155  f. 

Schism    between   East   and   West,    70   f., 

124  f.,  288. 
Scholasticism,  229,  237. 


Schoolmen,  231  f.,  378  f. 
Schools,  no,  231,  238  f. 
Scotland,  98,  316,  322  fF. 
Sicilian  Vespers,  266,  290,  369. 
Simony,  83,  120  f.,  136,  350,  363. 
Spiritual  Franciscans,  226. 

Temporal  power,  see  Papacy. 
Tome  of  Leo,  32,  41. 
Turks,  146,  150,  155,  160,  162,  170. 
Tusculum,  Courts  of,  79  f. 

Universals,  176. 
Universities,  238  fF.,  283,  321. 

Walter  the  Penniless,  150. 
West  Saxons,  conversion  of,  29. 
William  of  Champeaux,    174,    179, 
297. 


23* 


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